Kimber Myers
As the gap between the super-wealthy and everyone else continues to widen with depressing speed, dark eat-the-rich comedies have entranced audiences, critics, and awards voters over the last decade. Films like Parasite, Triangle of Sadness, and the Knives Out movies have lambasted the 1% for their greed, indifference, and hoarding of resources, capturing the zeitgeist of people tired of billionaires’ excesses. (Not that any of this has made a difference in the real world, given that the U.S. government is basically being run by the world’s richest man who is also a first-class idiot, but I digress.)
Death of a Unicorn jumps on that bandwagon, but this horror-comedy brings nothing new to the circus. I suppose you could argue that it adds bloodthirsty unicorns, but that is surprisingly less of a differentiator (and less fun) than you might imagine. Instead of rich people being killed by the lower class or each other, they’re gored by the horns of a mythical creature, which is … whatever. Even as someone who is actively anti-plutocracy, I still could not make myself care about anything in this movie, with the notable exception of Will Poulter, playing Shepard, the spoiled son of a pharma CEO.
I didn’t care about the fractured relationship between Elliot (Paul Rudd) and his daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega). I didn’t care when their car struck a unicorn while en route to the secluded estate of his dying billionaire boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant). I didn’t care when the unicorn’s blood and horn proved a panacea for every imaginable ailment from acne to cancer. I didn’t care when the dead unicorn’s parents arrived on the compound, eager for vengeance for their dead kid, and started killing everyone in increasingly gross ways.
And I’m not even just talking about a lack of emotional investment. Despite its cynicism, the script does seem to be angling for real feeling at times, especially in the father-daughter fracture and inevitable reconnection. Death of a Unicorn is weirdly dull and uninvolving overall for a movie about the death of a unicorn and the deaths of a bunch of humans. It’s mildly funny, but nowhere near as hilarious as it should be with a cast that also includes Anthony Carrigan, Téa Leoni, Sunita Mani, Steve Park, and Jessica Hynes.
None of these actors are as good as you’ve seen them in other, better fare, but the standout is Poulter. As the dilettante douchebag son alternately clad in a double-breasted knee-length robe, swimming trunks, and preppy shorts by costume designer Andrea Flesch, he’s a goddamn delight, delivering every line perfectly while looking perfectly silly. If Death of a Unicorn were just Shepard being a rich dick for 104 minutes, it would’ve been a much better movie—which is wild, given that its actual premise centers on murderous unicorns.
Beyond its monster movie aspects, Death of a Unicorn is also about how the ultra-rich generally lack morals and those who work in pharma make billions off the backs of the sick. No shit. If you haven’t seen The Menu, White Lotus or Dopesick (or paid any attention to the real world), then you might enjoy its facile, unsubtle satire. The feature debut of writer-director Alex Scharfman doesn’t add anything to the conversation or go any deeper with these ideas than “rich people bad.” Yes, and?
Death of a Unicorn’s efforts are hampered by the ugly and unconvincing CGI. It’s impossible to buy that unicorns are real, not because we’ve been told they’re the stuff of myth, but because these creations don’t seem to inhabit the same world as the human characters. There are a few amusing touches sprinkled throughout (iridescent unicorn blood!), but the overall execution is sloppy. Death of a Unicorn is also, umm, horny for early Edgar Wright, with its fast-cutting montages and the presence of Spaced’s Hynes, but it lacks the comedic verve of the British filmmaker when he was at his best.
Instead, Death of a Unicorn is a horse of a different color — and a surprisingly drab one despite its fun premise. Its one marvel is that a movie with this good of a cast, that is about fucking killer unicorns, is such a tame beast.
D+
“Death of a Unicorn” is in theaters this weekend.
