Death of a Unicorn ★★½
THE comedic drama Death of a Unicorn doesn’t work in the way its creator and the studio may have envisioned.
It’s hard to say with total confidence, but writer/director Alex Scharfman probably wanted to deliver a socially-relevant warning over our treatment of the natural world around us.
In particular, our failure to protect, and in some cases stop the exploitation, of certain species.
One of the reasons that points to this theory is Scharfman’s previous production credit on the 2017 documentary Trophy which called out the actions of African big game hunters and those who profit.
That film had a straight, dramatic tone that helped deliver the message with no ambiguity.
Unfortunately, the same message is diluted amongst the range of tones and directions taken in the manic narrative of his debut fictional tale.
In fairly odd casting choices, Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega play father and daughter on their way to a weekend stay at the palatial home of one of his rich clients.
Rudd’s character Elliot is concerned that he might be in danger of losing his contract with the eccentric family and wants to present a strong, unified front with his daughter Ridley who is far from interested or impressed.
On their way driving through the mountain range they hit a stray unicorn – yes, that’s right it’s a fantasy as well. An attempt to put the animal out of its misery results in both getting sprayed by blue-coloured blood (don’t hold me to that by the way as I’m colour-blind).
Rather than wind up even later to their hosts, Elliot throws the carcass in the boot of the car and continues on.
At the home we meet the odd family and settle back to enjoy some nice performances from the likes of Richard E. Grant, Tea Leoni and Will Poulter.
The rich lot eventually realise the unicorn has magical, healing properties that can be exploited, but their plans are endangered by the arrival of the infant unicorn’s very angry parents.
The film’s promising first hour-or-so starts to head down a far less interesting path.
Death of a Unicorn’s message may still be obvious, but the comedy and gore takes away from it substantially and what you have left is an oddity in entertainment only.
Watched at the cinema.