Death of a Unicorn

About five minutes into Alex Scharfman's horror/comedy/fantasy/class satire, he plainly lays out the level of writing and incisiveness we can expect over the next one hundred minutes.

Elliot (Paul Rudd) is off to visit his boss Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), a mega-rich pharma CEO. He and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) will be staying the weekend at Odell's isolated mansion on a huge nature reserve. She was only dragged along to appease Odell's obsession with family, and constantly complains about spending time with out of touch rich assholes. When Elliot parries by pointing out the large sums the Leopolds donate to charity, Ridley retorts "Philanthropy is just reputation laundering for the oligarchy." Reader, it was all I could do to avoid audibly groaning.

There's nothing wrong with a movie built around "eat the rich". For example, The Menu is excellent, Blink Twice is enjoyable despite its flaws, and the works of Bong-joon Ho are quite incisive and poignant. The subject isn't the problem. It's ripping dialog straight from Tumblr that's the problem. So much of what Ridley says are slogans to put on a protest sign, not something that makes any sense in a conversation. It's a sentiment constructed with the assumption you're on-board with the politics of the speaker. If you're unfamiliar with those foundational ideas, it comes across as gibberish.

If you are familiar with them, it does fairly quickly and efficiently characterize Ridley. However, the movie goes on to make her an unassailable hero whose only flaws are that she might have too much faith in her father. We're supposed to be on her side when she gets mad at her dad for letting a unicorn suffer after they slam into it with their rental car, and when she turns on him for putting it out of its misery. When the beast breaks out of their trunk at the mansion, only Ridley is willing to call it a unicorn; everyone else uses weaselly business-speak, e.g. "a horse-like mammalia, with some sort of protrusion or growth." And there's no point at which her "research", consisting entirely of looking at Dutch tapestries, is acknowledged as silly, nor does it mislead her. Everything Ridley does is correct, seemingly because she's the only person who's willing to tell off these rich people.

The Leopolds are cartoon characters, which is often a mistake in a satire. The more over-the-top they are, the less they resemble their real-life counterparts, requiring extra care for the commentary to feel relevant. Each Leopold is absurdly awful, oblivious to how evil they are, and completely insufferable. Even worse, Scharfman thinks that alone is funny. His approach to comedy is having them say something heinous, then pausing for applause. It's overwritten, bland, and full of the most picked over and uninteresting observations about how the wealthy don't live in the same world as the rest of us. Even Odell's obsession with family reads like a cable news talking point critiquing the modern Republican party, not an artistic depiction of the follies of such an outlook. Pointing at the problem with nothing further to say about it makes for an incredibly weak and boring satire.

That's before we get to how strange it is for the hired help to also be punished. You'd think a movie with this political bent would at least be sympathetic towards working class characters who are just trying to support their families. Neither Griff (Anthony Carrigan) nor Shaw (Jessica Hynes), their butler and PA respectively, participate in the Leopolds' disgusting behavior. Ridley even seems to form something of a connection with them. But that doesn't matter; they suffer along with those actively committing evil. There's something there about only those actively fighting injustice are truly innocent (another Tumblr classic), sure. However, it gets lost in the same whirlwind of activity which leave them out of large chunks of the film.

By far the most unexpected stance Scharfman takes is a distrust of science. Whenever Dr. Song (Steve Park) and Dr. Bhatia (Sunita Mani) present their findings, they speak in the most opaque way possible, complicating simple results. They emphasize how uncertain everything is, as they should since they only just began examining this unique specimen. But that's treated as a bad thing, highlighted by Ridley making a few contradictory assertions which all turn out to be correct. Even just the act of investigating is looked upon with disdain. The first person to be killed by the unicorn's rampaging parents is one of the scientists, putting an even finer point on it. The message is clear: science is no substitute for feeling something with your gut, or taking the myths of the past at face value. Which is a regressive and arguably harmful viewpoint to put out into the world, especially in America's current political landscape.

The whole movie is off-balance because in its reverence for Ortega, it neglects to give her an arc. Instead, it's Elliot who changes, as he must figure out how to stand up to his boss to finally put his daughter first. This off-center transformation means we have a limited perspective on his inner life, denying us the satisfaction of experiencing his personal growth alongside him. Since he's the only person in the whole movie who shifts at all, it results in a bunch of characters who feel cut out of construction paper.

As for its genre touchpoints, it whiffs those as well. I will say, I like the design of the unicorns on a rampage, and there are great moments of violence. People getting gored by a practical horn looks great, as do close-ups with an animatronic. But the beasts are mostly mediocre CGI, and their unnatural movements stand out like a sore thumb since we're all familiar with horses. Almost none of the humor hits, every joke rendered in its most obvious and/or cringey version. It doesn't help that the tone and pacing are all over the place, as it desperately wants Elliot's arc to impact his relationship with Ridley, but has no idea how to do so while moving forward with the unicorn revenge plot. Furthermore, while the acting isn't bad, it's not good enough to elevate the poor script.

Well, with the exception of Will Poulter. He plays Shepherd, the Leopolds' twenty-something tech bro-coded son who also has shades of 1980s Wall Street energy. His completely unearned confidence, his certainty he can figure out how to relate to Ridley, and the manner in which he completely falls apart once the danger arrives just work for me. Poulter brings a natural attitude and punchable face which suit the character so well. The way he's written as almost a "new money" flavor of evil is a nice contrast to the stuffy atmosphere which otherwise smothers the house. The only times I laughed during the whole affair was when Poulter was on screen.

Other than that, the entire film is a humongous miscalculation. It feels like it was written by committee and directed by yet another person/team, despite both those roles being done by the same person. Maybe it got noted to death, maybe there were reshoots we haven't heard about, maybe the the $15 million budget was too low. I hate to be so negative about a wholly original screenplay the year after sequels ruled the box office. I appreciate the effort put in by Scharfman and the whole cast and crew, I really do. When I sit down to watch a movie, any movie, I do my best to stay open to it, ready to receive any and all value it has to offer. Writing these reviews would be an exercise in masochism otherwise.

But boy oh boy, this ain't it.