Unicorn Store is a Netflix drama about a woman named who receives a mysterious invitation that would fulfill her childhood dreams.
“What I really want to do is direct.” So says many actors when asked about their future plans once they’ve had a bit of success. It’s sort of a comedic meme in the industry by now, but many who have found fame in front of the camera often move behind it, because that’s where creative control lies. In the immediate years after Brie Larson catapulted to international acclaim for her work in 2015’s Room, she, like many who ‘suddenly’ get wide exposure, had a slew of offers before landing the lead in the recent superhero movie Captain Marvel, the current gold standard for ‘making it’ in Hollywood.
Before that though, she was given the reins to direct her own movie, and thus, we get Unicorn Store, written by Samantha McIntyre and now streaming on Netflix. She also stars, playing Kit, a young woman who has epically failed out of art school, having expressed herself too much in gaudy colors and a childlike obsession with unicorns. Heading back home to live with her parents Gene (Bradley Whitford) and Gladys (Joan Cusack), who run a camp for emotionally troubled children, she struggles to find her place in a world that suppresses personal creativeness. While she dips her toes in the regular working world working at a vacuum cleaner company, she soon gets an invite to visit the Unicorn Store run by The Salesman (Samuel L. Jackson), where she is offered the chance to own a real fantastical horse, though there are some hurdles in getting one.
Purposefully quirky, even as the film revels in bright colors, there’s really only black and while in terms of its message, with Larsen and company playfully poking fun at the humdrum establishment of corporate America, who has lost sight of its imagination, or at least it’s ability to express it. A bland, uninspiring office landscape is nothing new in these kinds of fairy tales (John Patrick Shanley‘s Joe Versus The Volcano still does it best) and the early moments in the copy room of a dull olive drag office is fun. Clever even.
Then it all switches tracks when the colorful invitation arrives and Kit is compelled to visit a place that, when asked, no one’s heard of before. Finding a store that seems open only for her, she comes to be told that unicorns are real and she’s about to get one, and it becomes clear that we’re treading on some tenuous metaphorical tight ropes. Believe in yourself and trust your individuality seem desperate to be the thoughts most wanting to be seen, and Larson steps back and then leaps into the abyss, playing Kit with some awareness she’s off the beaten path (where almost everyone else seems highly complacent) but clearly one cog to the left of everyone else. Naturally, she’s surrounded by people who are weird because, you know, they’re ‘normal.’
Larson works hard wearing both hats, trying to mix in some comedy and drama, with some absorbing performances from Jackson (who wears tinsel in his hair) and especially Mamoudou Athie as Kit’s new friend Virgil. You’re supposed to wonder if what is happening is real or not and – if you’re like me – work to find where reality slips into fantasy (if in fact there is any). That’s the fun part.
Unicorn Store was filmed in 2017 and now finally has a home. It’s not close to being for everyone, even fans of Larson perhaps tested, though she’s undeniably fun to watch. There are lots of good moments sprinkled about, and while the tone is often off and it never quite finds the romanticized joy it seems hopeful for, it’s just curious enough to make it work.