Unicorn Store (2019)

I love Brie Larson so when I learnt that her directorial debut, Unicorn Store, was available on Netflix (by the way, fuck you Netflix for telling me about every single insignificant rom-com of yours but totally forgetting about notifying me about this, and thank you Film Twitter for making me realise it), I watched it immediately.

The story follows Kit (Brie Larson), a young woman who is ejected from art school and goes back in with her parents (Bradley Whitford and Joan Cusack). After dumping herself on the sofa watching TV, she decides to join a temp agency, takes up an office job and soon finds encouragement from Gary (Hamish Linklater), the company's vice president, to pitch a campaign for a vacuum cleaner. But then she gets an invitation to The Store where the salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) promises that not only unicorns exist but that she'll be able to have one of herself to love her forever if she lives up to a few demands. 

While it's arguably not your typical coming-of-age story, Unicorn Store is yet another movie dealing with themes of growing up, letting go of childhood and living in the real world. Unfortunately, it's all been done before and more effectively too. In addition, it often gets cheesy and overly positive and it's quite annoying, and the romantic subplot never really takes off. It does, however, a good job at portraying how young people feel about failure and it's quite relatable because of it. 

The characters aren't particularly captivating either. Kit is not your typical twenty-something who is afraid of growing up and facing the real world, she is an immature young woman obsessed with glitters, rainbows and unicorns. What bothered me about her is that we don't get to know enough of her story to understand why she is so immature and acts the way she does. Also, the way she goes from laying on the sofa all day long wearing basically kids clothes to getting a job and wearing grown-up clothes just seems unrealistic. As for the supporting characters, they don't have a lot of depth. 

Netflix

Despite the lacklustre script, every single member of the cast does a wonderful job. Brie Larson is just fantastic as naive dreamer Kit, a character that seems to fit her personality like a glove. She gives such a charming performance that radiates so much happiness and joy, it's a delight to watch her, and makes the character very likeable and lovable. Also, she yet again shows off her comedic skills. Samuel L. Jackson is obviously having a lot of fun as The Store owner which makes us have a lot of fun watching him. Joan Cusack and Bradley Whitford do a great job as Kit's parents. It's Mamoudou Athie though that steals the scene as Virgil, a new acquaintance of Kit's as well as about the only "normal" character in the film.

The visual aspect of Unicorn Store is quite interesting too. The film is indeed nicely shot, the shaky camera works well and so do the many close-ups, and it's very, very aesthetically pleasing with its bright pastel and wild colours.