These aren’t the unicorns you’re used to in fantasy tales, these are fearsome beasts—because of course they would be, in a movie from A24. Death of a Unicorn brings the laughs as a darkly hilarious creature feature, but it also sharply eviscerates everyday conflicts stirred up by capitalism.
Paul Rudd stars as Elliot, a single father trying to move up the ladder with his terminally sick employer Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), who is on his deathbed trying to stave off death with the best medicines in existence to no avail. The Leopold family invites Elliot and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) to spend a weekend in their secluded mansion in the woods in order to determine if Elliot has what it takes to be the financial handler for the family estate once Odell kicks the bucket. But in particular, they want to meet his family in order to see if he’s fit to take care of the surviving Leopolds.
Death of a Unicorn takes a turn when Elliot runs over a baby unicorn on the way to the Leopold’s mansion. It’s moment that comes amid family drama played fantastically between father and daughter, contrasting Elliot’s earnest cluelessness with Ridley’s deadpan. Rudd and Ortega’s characters are perfect foils for each other—though both are feeling deep inner conflicts over the loss of Ridley’s mom—and it all comes to a head when they hit the unicorn. Director Alex Scharfman really channels both actors’ strengths in order to anchor such a silly premise to get us on board, and the results are comedy gold.
Things escalate once they get to the Leopold estate with the dead unicorn in the trunk of their car. A farce ensues when the duo try to hide it, and it’s here Death of a Unicorn really starts to show its bite, as the Leopolds put on their caring 1% show to try to connect with Ridley and Elliot. Téa Leoni as Belinda Leopold and Will Poulter as Shepard Leopold absolutely nail the elitist left mother and tech-bro son archetypes that are rampant on reality shows and the internet to a tee. Comedic fan faves Anthony Carrigan (Barry), Sunita Mani (Spirited), Steve Park (Mickey 17), and Jessica Hynes (Spaced) round out the ensemble, and they deliver on a level that I don’t think any other cast could have really pulled off.
Once the Leopolds discover the healing properties of the baby unicorn’s blood, it’s masks off for the rich folks who decide to harvest it. Odell wants it replicated, his wife wants the notoriety, and Shepard—well, he wants to fashion it into a designer drug, much to Ridley’s horror. As the voice of reason, her attempts to appeal to her father to get the baby unicorn away from them fall on deaf ears; the potentially world-changing properties of one drained baby unicorn don’t outweigh her father’s determination to get them out of the rut they’re in. It’s a tale as old as time, and Scharfman cleverly reimagines class commentary that could have happened anytime in a sharp satire of today’s societal struggles against the tone-deaf rich.
The unicorn is overly scrutinized for ways to monetize it to, the point where the powerful creature’s existence should have served as a warning. Much like Knives Out, where the interests of those in power stomp all over the sensible thing to do, a looming threat arrives out of the woods, and it’s one that cannot be defeated by humankind, no matter how much money goes into throwing violence at it. With all the build up of how terrible some of these people are, the moment things take a turn into a gratuitously joyful bloodbath, it’s so just so fun and cathartic to watch, a genre mashup that feels like a riff on a Christopher Guest-esque ensemble piece, an Amblin fantasy, and a straight-up John Carpenter creature feature. All the film’s actors work in every genre, and apparently so do unicorns—which, by the way, are both hilarious and viciously scary in a way I truly didn’t know I needed.
Death of a Unicorn hits theaters March 28.
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