Death of a Unicorn – Film Review

“I told you so, Dad”, gleefully chorused daughters all over the globe.

This fun, gory A24 feature and directorial debut of Alex Schwarfman set in the beautiful mountainous north of America takes a mystical, endearing mythical figure of our childhoods such as unicorns and turns them into bloodthirsty, sharp-teethed vengeful killers.

Dad and I enjoyed a good laugh watching this last Sunday evening at the invitation of Luna Leederville.

Loveable, dependable father figures such as Paul Rudd are transformed into hapless, neglectful, ladder-climbing numpties with a beer belly.

Our maiden fair leading lady in her teens, Jenny Ortega known best as the star of Addams tv spinoff “Wednesday”, is also more believable as an acne-prone, resentful, introverted yet naively optimistic youth.

And as usual, rich white people are just awful, aren’t they? Richard E Grant, Tea Leoni, and Will Poulter are hysterically irredeemable, quickly seeing the bright side of unicorn roadkill (first let’s just make sure it’s dead, whoops, now it is) for their very profitable not-for-profit big pharma, the ailing health of the head trophy-hunting patriach, or even the recreational self medicating habits of their idiot son in boat shorts.

Perhaps some tropes are overused, such as the stern German guardwoman, the Lurchesque family butler, and yes, again, rich white people really are awful. How shocking. No moral compass. Still surprised?

No matter. It’s entertaining once you decide to snort a little of the unicorn dust and go with it.

Now showing at Luna Cinemas.

7/10

By Gayle O’Leary. If you’d like to catch up on more by Gayle here on Fremantle Shipping News, look right here!

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