Unicorn Store

I'm probably not the target market for this film, maybe it resonates better with younger or female audiences. I did watch the whole thing so it wasn't horrible, I did want to see how it ended.

It's a story about a young woman trying to figure out life and her place in it and how to relate to her family and friends and humanity in general. She seems to gain some insight through her journey. There is a bit of magical realism done in a somewhat clever manner that adds to the allegorical feel.

I did other things while watching it and found it to be okay entertainment to pass the time.

So objectively this movie is not so great, has many flaws and you will probably not like it.

But I loved it and it devastated me with each simple message, like how hard it is to be loved and not doubt oneself when a person is just different and not in the holywoody good polished funny way or how is it to doubt own sanity and validity for it. The purity of the unicorn and the mess of the real live and whatnot. Yes the movie is not very good but I would still recommend it to anyone feeling a bit out of place most of the time.

Also the love they have for each other in the family, combined with the inability to understand each other and the efforts they all put in it in their own ways is just gut wrenching and a strong good message of the movie, if nothing else.

A girl gets invited by a mysterious stranger to go to a store to get a unicorn. She's wanted one her entire life despite the attempts by her zany parents to normalise her. Sound like a good plot? It's not, but Brie Larson and Samuel L Jackson manage to pull this off and turn it into a sweet lovely film about life and dreams, and love and growing up. I think without Jackson and Larson this would have been a ridiculous film that no-one would like, but they made it work and I now forgive Larson for her searingly bad appearance in Kong.

Unicorn store is a magnificent modern tale like The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) was in its time, a metaphoric movie to be apprehended at the second degree. As a child, Kit radiates happiness until gradually becoming a young hardly-happy adult. She's single, unemployed, glued to the sofa in front of the TV all day, able to drink a full glass of wine at one gulp without even realizing it, ... until an unusual salesman from an unusual store disrupts her life. This film deals mainly with stereotypes, conformism and the difficulty of leaving a childhood filled with dreams, to join a world of adults devoid of joy or benevolence.

Growing old does not necessarily mean growing up...

Unicorn store is the first movie directed by Brie Larson, sensational actress in Short Term 12 or Room for instance, and requires then a minimum of indulgence. On April the 5th, 2019, the ratings distribution on IMDb is literally extra-ordinary, with an anti-Gaussian curve: either we worship this movie (25% of 9 or 10), either we hate it (55% of 1 or 2), with a staggering total of 80% with these two extremist groups! I find myself torn by contradictory feelings, as usual in some way, but I globally enjoyed this movie. Although it's imperfect, it's definitely worth a try. And even more than this.

Though the premise is loveably bold, and seemingly fun, Unicorn Store proves to be more awkward and poorly written than it would seem. Brie Larson is at most okay, in this even mess of a film, but its not nearly her acting that is concerning about this picture, but rather her stance as the director. The film seems tonally and emotionally off at times, and though you may want to blame it on the fact that it claims it is being weird, there is a big difference between being so and being random instead. It's not that being weird is necessarily a problem of the film either, but rather it doesn't seem to know how to do so. The film goes all over the place, not knowing what it wants to be, or what it wants to say most of the time. Samuel L. Jackson is by far the best part of this seemingly tv-made film, and makes the best of his poorly written lines/dialogue. In the end, Unicorn Store does make you believe in the magic it was trying to create. Only if it had a better way of getting to the message it was trying to convey, it just may prove to be a decent time. But instead, like the glitter it often uses, it just feels messy. My Rating: 4.75/10