Death of a Unicorn
College student Ridley (Jenna Ortega) isn't thrilled about accompanying her single dad Elliot (Paul Rudd) to a retreat in the Leopold Wilderness Reserve, a business trip for him to attend to his client, the dying patriarch of pharmaceutical company. Things get even more complicated when Elliot, distracted by a phone call from a perturbed Odell (Richard E. Grant), hits something in the road. Believing the creature still alive, Ridley is astonished by what she sees, making a profound connection with the beast after grasping its horn, but Elliot rushes to put it out of its misery with a tire iron causing the "Death of a Unicorn."
Laura's Review: D+
Writer/director Alex Scharfman makes his feature debut with the umpteenth twist on "E.T.," a film with a game cast that nevertheless bores with its utter predictability. Scharfman's imagining of the film as a horror comedy provides little in the way of either horror or comedy.
Elliot twists himself into knots trying to explain his and Ridley's late arrival, not admitting having killed the mystical creature now stored in the back of his SUV (why he would have spent the time to hoist the animal into his vehicle instead of dragging it off to the side of the road is, of course, an illogical necessity of the screenplay). As Elliot gets into the legalities that will establish his fortunes in the Leopold family business as Odell stares down death, two occurrences completely change the dynamics of the gathering - the unicorn begins to kick its way out, drawing everyone out of the lodge to witness servant Shaw (Jessica Hynes, "Shaun of the Dead") shooting it, and Ridley discovers its purple blood has completely cleared up her acne. The next thing we know, Odell's hooked up to an IV and voila, the man is cured, but he's given a setback when research head Dr. Song (Steve Park) tells him the unicorn's blood is impossible to replicate. But when they learn their specimen is a juvenile and its vengeful parents come to retrieve it, exploitation at all costs is the order of the day. They don't realize what they're up against and they're not listening to Ridley, the 'pure of heart maiden' who has researched the myth behind The Unicorn Tapestries after finding a picture of her late mom at The Cloisters, a woven unicorn peaking over her shoulder.
Scharfman tries to add warmth to his tale by drawing the father and daughter on opposite ends of their moral conundrum together over the course of his film, but it's just too pat to invest in, Sunita Mani ("Save Yourselves!") evoking more pathos as Dr. Song's colleague. The Leopold family, which includes Odell's wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) and CEO-in-waiting son Shepard (Will Poulter) are cartoon villains, the horn snorting Poulter, at least, adding some hypocritical humor in the film's best performance. As manservant Griff, Anthony Carrigan (HBO's 'Barry's' Noho Hank) supplies some amusing silent commentary. Rudd and Ortega are fine, but as the movie's straight men, they don't have much to play with.
And then there's the gory retribution of the adult unicorns, whose rampage against the Leopold lodge includes gorings and disembowelments. I think this is supposed to be both a funny twist on the unicorn myth (Ridley exhibits a 'restored' Cloisters tapestry which paints the legendary creatures as vengeful monsters) and a sop to gorehounds, but it just falls flat. "Death of a Unicorn" is an uninspired genre mash-up.
A24 releases "Death of a Unicorn" in theaters on 3/28/25.
