Death of a Unicorn
Fable, horror, black comedy and (clumsy) impalement of the rich are on tap in this entertaining fantasy about unicorns living among us... but not as cute mythological ponies.
One of Hollywood’s favorite topics is lambasting the rich. Personally, as someone who wore flea-market jeans to high school and parked a 15-year-old Plymouth next to classmates’ Beamers and Volvos, I have no problem with this.
But have you ever thought about the fact this community is literally the least-equipped there is to mock the affluent and influential? Like, the epicenter of vanity and unearned riches constantly grousing about the imbalance of wealth? A world where fourth-tier comedians are bazillionaires?
I’m reminded of the “hot dog guy” meme where the loudest voice demanding a search for the suspect who crashed a giant hot dog vehicle is the one sporting a fluffy foam bun and fake mustard stripe.
Fortunately for “Death of the Unicorn,” impaling the rich is not the only coin of its particular realm. It’s a fable in which people discover that unicorns are living among us — but not as cute mythological ponies. Massive, fanged and ill-tempered, they’ve come to hunt us.
The feature-film debut as a writer/director for Alex Scharfman after a long run as a producer, it combines elements of fantasy, horror and black comedy — along with the aforementioned rich=bad stuff, which honestly is the weakest part of the movie.
Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd play daughter and father Ridley and Elliott, who are traveling to the remote Leopold Wilderness Reserve in one of those vague “up north” locales. Elliott has been working for the Leopold clan, pharmaceutical mega-billionaires, as a grunt attorney and has been chosen for a custodial partnership that could set him up for life.
Ridley is an art history major with acne and a glum attitude, mostly about the loss of her mother a few years back but also her being forced to come on this trip. She quips that people like the Leopolds use their philanthropic activities as a cover for their rapacious capitalism, such as having a mountainous reserve ostensibly for wildlife but really to keep the riff-raff out.
Ridley and Elliott already have a somewhat scratchy relationship; she just wants him to be a loving dad and he thinks he’s got to make money and impress important people in order to do that. Elliott’s not a bad guy, but has become misdirected and blinkered.
Things get interrupted when they crash into a creature on the road, which turns out to be none other than a for-real unicorn. With purple blood, glowing eyes and that big ol’ horn. Ridley touches it while trying to console the dying creature, creating a mystical bond that will become pivotal later.
For some reason they decide to haul the thing up to the Leopolds’ manse rather than just leave the carcass by the side of the road. Of course it’s soon discovered, leading to the usual thing that happens when very rich people encounter something magical and/or forbidding in movies: “How can we exploit this to make ourselves even richer??”
I gotta tell you, greed at that level is just puzzling to me. Maybe I’m unambitious. But if, say, $20 million dropped into my lap tomorrow, I’m done ever thinking about money again.
If someone subsequently said, “Hey Chris, you wanna do something really unethical and dangerous to get another $20 million?”, I’m going to be like, eff no, man. Bring me another grenadine soda and let’s chill.
The running joke with the Leopolds is they try to couch everything they do in terms of doing the greater good for mankind. So when the patriarch, Odell — played by Richard E. Grant, who’s just fabulous at portraying moral rot — discovers the unicorn’s spattered blood cured Ridley’s zits and Elliott’s wonky eyesight, he figures it’ll also fix the tumors leeching his life away.
That it does, leading him and wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) to conclude they’ve got to hunt down every unicorn there is to cure cancer — or, at least, the illnesses of those well-to-do enough to pay for the rarest of resources: powdered unicorn horn.
Their son, Shepard (Will Poulter), has inherited all of his parents’ faults but none of their drive. He talks like a modern guy who’s been exposed to the best DEI training but twists it to justify not having any kind of job or skills. He’s basically just been waiting around for his father to die so he can take the reins and crash Leopold Pharma into a brick wall within the next decade.
He’s a stock villain in white belted shorts and sockless loafers. Poulter gets most of the movie’s best laughs for his volatile mix of utter depravity and cluelessness.
Jessica Hynes and Anthony Carrigan play the Leopolds’ closest-held servants, always ready to deliver an omelette or kill whatever needs killing. Sunita Mani and Steve Park turn up as scientists running a portable lab in the main dining room; like Elliott they’ve sold their expertise and souls to the Man.
Scharfman does a fine job of keeping the focus on the relationship between Elliott and Ridley, even as things get scarier and the body count starts to add up — along with some impressive FX gore. We keep seeing Elliott taking the wrong turn, doing the Leopolds’ bidding, and his kid just wants him to do the right thing and leave the unicorns alone.
It’s Paul Rudd, for gosh sake, so I don’t think I have to tell you whether or not he eventually stands up from his crooked bow to the richies. Maybe in another five years further away from Marvel movies, Rudd will be ready to play the Odells of the world.
Despite the clumsy skewering of the billionaire class — even Bernie Sanders would be like, “Laying it on a bit thick?” — “Death of a Unicorn” is an entertaining flick that glosses over the low-performing parts of its balance sheet.
Now go give the showiz types 14 bucks so they can make more movies about the vices of the overcompensated.