Death of a Unicorn: Never Trust a Capitalist

On April 10, my mother came to town and we went to go see an A24 film called Death of a Unicorn that came out back on March 28. We didn’t do any gardening beforehand and I’m really glad I didn’t. This film is scary. My adrenaline was up for a solid 15 to 20 minutes after the film. If I gardened before watching this, I probably would’ve died. That being said, I do think it was decent. Highlights include the performances from Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd, the dive into unicorn lore, through the attachment to the famous medieval Unicorn Tapestries. First things first: Rudd and Ortega give amazing performances. I knew that Ortega is great as the young girl in a horror film (a typecast I hope she escapes soon) through her previous roles in X, Scream VI, and Miller’s Girl, so she gave an expectedly good performance. The real surprise was Rudd. I had only seen him previously in comedy or action films, such as Clueless and Ant-Man, so I was nervous about his performance in this film. To my surprise, he wasn’t too bad! I don’t think he gave the best performance ever, nor do I think he should try to break into the horror scene, but I think that his performance would’ve been one of the best parts of this film if he had a better character. Rudd’s character Elliott is a widower with a college-aged daughter, which presents no inherent issues, but the problems arise when you realize that his motives are unclear because he flip-flops between money and his daughter. It feels as though throughout the film, Elliott switches between being motivated by his daughter’s well being and being motivated by money. We don’t know what he really wanted until the end, and even then it’s confusing. It added to how predictable the film was, but didn’t allow for anyone besides the evil rich people and Ortega’s character Ridley to be fully fleshed out. 

Although the plot is basic and predictable, what really carries it is the deep dive into unicorn lore. There was a clear amount of research put into this film through its fantastical portrayal of good versus evil with the reliance on the Unicorn Tapestries, which are an infamous portrayal of the story of Christ. Following the stories and characters from the Tapestries, the film explains to the audience near the beginning what’s going to happen by the end, making the rest of the film jump scare and gore central. I do like the relationship between this film and the Unicorn Tapestries, as it deepens the film somewhat by attaching it to these paintings associated with Christianity, but there wasn’t anything deep about it beyond that. The money-obsessed classist capitalists were evil, and the new wave socialist art history major liberal arts bisexual hitting her vape every second she gets was the only one that was pure of heart. While I like that the film takes a strong stance on capitalism, I do wish it explored more complexities within the characters themselves. It started to explore character depth a little with Elliott, but didn’t really explore his character beyond being a loving father who wants to make money so his daughter can have everything she wants. The rest of the characters are just archetypes: a doctor who wants money, a doctor who wants respect, an evil pharmaceutical capitalist, his socialite wife, their drug addict son, and the people they hire. The characters are just all so bland and one-dimensional, making it hard to really feel for them. This blandness is amplified in contrast to  the depth and uniqueness of the lore of the unicorns. 

All in all, I feel as though this film was deep in lore, but shallow in everything else. I would love to see more unicorn movies like this, as long as the characters are fleshed out and the plot doesn't feel like it was conceived by ChatGPT. Don’t forget to follow me on Letterboxd (@avianfruitss) and comment down below if you are an evil capitalist or a new wave socialist art history major liberal arts bisexual hitting her vape every second she gets!