Death of a Unicorn review – goofy eat-the-rich satire isn’t fun enough

6 hours ago 2

The unicorn has been a staple of folk mythology for thousands of years, dating back to at least ancient Persia, with consistent characteristics: a horse-like figure with a single majestic horn, fundamentally elusive and untamable, possessing magical healing properties. But such a creature, recognizable from medieval art to My Little Pony, is one of the less familiar elements of Death of a Unicorn, the debut feature from writer-director Alex Scharfman that premiered at the SXSW film festival on Saturday. The film, produced by clout powerhouse A24, traffics in well-trod territory: the prestige eat-the-rich satire with a stacked cast and a beautiful backdrop. So well-trod, in fact, that it’s a relief when the mythical beasts do arrive – if only to reveal dubious CGI and a questionable commitment to the bit.

Silly as it may sound, Scharfman treats this unicorn bit with sincere seriousness, aiming for relevance on the rapacious state of late-stage capitalism satirized in such recent hits as The Menu, Triangle of Sadness, Knives Out: Glass Onion, Parasite and Succession, among others. I know this road, you know this road, even disaffected college student Ridley (Jenna Ortega) knows this road as she and her credulous father Elliot (Paul Rudd), a corporate lawyer, drive into the Canadian Rockies for a retreat with Elliot’s billionaire boss and his family. “Philanthropy is just reputation laundering for the oligarchy,” she retorts when her father tries to extol the largesse of the Leopolds, a clan of pharmaceutical executives loosely based on America’s Sackler family.

There is nothing about the Leopold family – terminally ill patriarch Odell (Richard E Grant, bringing a dash of British colonialism to this tale of American capitalism), wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) and feckless son Shep (Will Poulter) – that could surprise or perversely amuse anyone familiar with this genre. Just jobs for the actors to so, boxes of craven behavior and delusions of infallibility to check, mellifluous single notes of callous narcissism to hit. Which all the performers do well, Poulter especially, though that does not leaven a pervading sense of boredom.

What is surprising, at least initially, is to see how Scharfman devises the promise of the title, which arrives abruptly in the first few minutes: Elliot, distracted by a tiff with Ridley, accidentally hits a unicorn, rendering it immobile but still alive, and the duo spattered in purple blood. Ridley, a lonely daughter without a mother, forms an instant bond with the creature rendered as a freewheeling acid trip through the cosmos with a touch of its horn. Elliot, a widower hellbent on making some cash to support his daughter, beats the unicorn to death with a tire iron, the first of many tough instances for the squeamish among us.

Back at the estate – which is indeed beautiful and managed by put-upon head of staff Griff (Barry’s Anthony Carrigan) – the oligarchs strain to not say what the creature really is, nor squander its potential when it becomes clear that unicorn blood can cure everything from teenage acne to cancer. It’s a mode of writing that grows tiresome quickly. Ortega, the nominal star of the film though remarkably underused, provides the film’s sole grounding point, as Ridley intuits something darker afoot and begins to research unicorn folklore, correctly interpreting the famous medieval unicorn tapestries at the Met’s Cloisters as evidence that such hubris will only invite destruction. (If nothing else, this film will activate some latent art history nerds.)

Indeed, these unicorns are not rainbows and butterflies but the all-powerful monsters of yore, capable of jump scares and very bloody impalements, among other gory violence. Scharfman has a solid handling on the trappings of the mega-wealthy, though his interstitials of deluxe service feel derivative of The Menu; less so the mechanics of a creature feature in which the unicorns range from indestructible to wary of doors. Not that the internal logic would matter, if the stakes felt compelling (you know how this will go for the rich, who are of course very bad), or if the monster madness felt inventive (it doesn’t, although the specter of a sharp-toothed horse is a strangely intriguing conceit). Death of a Unicorn clocks in at under two hours, but feels longer, its inherent silliness not matched with the necessary self-awareness, chemistry or fun.

What does work, however, is a last-minute play to connect Ridley’s ineffable connection to the slain unicorn with the magical realism of grief, the way we see things, realms, creatures and spirits that may or may not be there in the aftermath of loss. There’s something weird and moving and different in that interpretation, if only for a brief few minutes, that brings a small point to the tedious lunacy of the ultra-rich that comes before. But by large, this beastly feature is exactly what you would expect it to be: fashioning itself different but in fact much like the others. A unicorn, this is not.