Brie Larson not only has the success of Captain Marvel to take pride in, but now she can add a director’s credit to her resume with her feature directorial debut, Unicorn Store, now streaming on Netflix. The idea of unicorns existing in this reality comes across as a silly and ultimately distracting thought from the real world. Unicorns have a definite shape to them, according to their lore, and it would seem like a reasonable thing to believe in, but alas, the mythical beings are mostly viewed as figments of a lost imagination. It’s that imagination that Brie Larson’s character, Kit, attempts to regain in her personal journey towards not being a “disappointment to others” with her feature directorial debut, Unicorn Store. Written by Samantha McIntyre, Unicorn Store presents itself as something of a quirky comedy-drama, finding both the heartbreak and humor in growing up and becoming an adult in the ‘real world’. Ironically, this film had its own troubles being recognized in the real world, having essentially been in limbo for 2 years, with no distributor willing to pick it up for release. Considering how utterly baffling the main concept of the film is, it’s understandable that studios wouldn’t see people flocking to this movie. But Netflix, scalding hot after their major success at the Oscars this year, threw its name into the mix and now Unicorn Store now bears the label of a Netflix Original. Some might see this as a sign of doom, what with Netflix’s infamous dumping site mentality with its programming, but with a star like Brie Larson starring AND directing, it’d doubtful that this will be a movie forgotten by Netflix viewers. Having directed some shorts in the past, Larson has an inkling of experience when it comes to directing, but Unicorn Store is her first stab at directing a full-length feature movie. Not only that, but her role as main protagonist, Kit, has her pulling double duty by watching both hers and the rest of the cast’s performances. A tough job for sure, but Larson is confident and that confidence shines through in her debut here. But is confidence the only thing the film has going for it? Disappointment to others Unicorn Store sets itself up not only as a strange comedy-drama paying homage to creativity, but also as an intimate experience for Brie Larson, who went in and added home footage of her own childhood to connect it to Kit’s own childhood, adding in a meta-narrative about Larson’s relationship with adulthood. Larson’s natural personality seeps through in Kit, who is introduced as a whimsical and energetic artist, going to town on her paintings and letting her creativity run wild. All of this comes at the expense of her placement in art school after her art professors silently trash her work and consider her not to be worthy of the school. Now living back at home with her parents, Kit attempts to conform with what she considers adulthood by applying for an office job at a temp agency. But the story of Unicorn Store isn’t necessarily about her experience at her temp job. It’s about unicorns, or A unicorn to be specific. No, the title isn’t simply there for looking cool. In the film, the Unicorn Store is very much a real (ish) place that Kit visits after receiving a mysterious invitation from it. In it, she finds an eccentric salesman (Samuel L. Jackson in an utterly delightful charmer of a performance) that promises her that he can sell her a unicorn, which she has always wanted. It’s something hinted at pretty clearly in the home videos of Kit/Brie, making the narrative a little extra meta in the process. From there, Unicorn Store balances a comedy that deals with Kit trying her best to meet all of the qualifications to own a unicorn while simultaneously trying to bring a little life and color to her office job. There’s always something for Kit to do and learn, from meeting new people to gaining new opportunities for her creativity to shine at work and it makes for both a pleasant and emotional ride that’s seemingly small in scope, but encompasses a world much larger than Kit’s own. The perils of growing up Kit, portrayed fantastically by the actor/director, is an adult woman who hasn’t quite matured in a way that could keep her going in life. She’s more likely to have longer conversations with her stuffed animals over her own parents and she possesses a somewhat selfish attitude towards how she chooses to chase her desires. Kit defines herself by what she believes other people see her as, using this as her personal motivation to try to be an “adult” with a boring office job. Unicorn Store puts us in the shoes of Kit and identifies with her mindset, but in no way does it imply that Kit is absolutely right in her assessment of the world and the people around her. The plot involving the unicorn, though crucial when it needs to be, functions almost entirely as a secondary addition to the real story of the film: Kit’s personal journey to adulthood and the complex nature of creativity. Unicorn Store‘s world is larger and much more complicated than Kit has ever imagined, being enlightened in a way with her school failure at the beginning of the movie. “Not everything can go your way” is a motto that Kit seems to adopt after moving back home, but the film suggests that one shouldn’t be miserable and conform to the barriers of ‘boring’ adulthood even if some things don’t go as planned. Through the use of multiple interesting set designs and vast array of characters with their own unique take on adulthood, Unicorn Store demonstrates a detailed and realistic world that isn’t always out to get you or some part of a large conspiracy to keep creativity down. There are characters that are actively ignorant of an artist’s passion in this film, but they are hardly the focus of the film.<doc-sep>All that glitters is not gold in the Netflix original film “Unicorn Store,” a sickly-sweet monument to arrested development, built around a failed artist who never grew past the mythical, magical, one-horned creature that enchanted her as a child. She also likes sticking Bugles on her fingertips, consulting with a shelf of Care Bears and a color palette that suggests an explosion at the Skittles factory. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — at least not according to Samantha McIntyre, who wrote the script, and Brie Larson, who directs and stars, earnestly championing a dreamer that others might dismiss as childish or ridiculous. In fact, “Unicorn Store” becomes an argument for itself: If such a tacky fantasy can get produced, then clearly it’s a viable enterprise for grown-ups.<doc-sep>Fighting with My Family coming to DVD and Blu-ray in May 2019 by Alexandria Ingham Brie Larson’s Unicorn Store is now on Netflix. One thing Prime subscribers will want to know is whether it will be on Amazon Prime Video. Netflix’s big movie release for the weekend is Unicorn Store. Starring and directed by Brie Larson, fans around the world will tune in, especially those who have just seen her in Captain Marvel. Now Prime subscribers will want to know if they can watch through Amazon Prime Video. What about Amazon Channels? The answer to both questions is “no.” As it’s a Netflix Film, the only place you can watch Unicorn Store right now is on Netflix. It will not be on Amazon Prime Video. Unless something changes between the two companies (and our recent post about Amazon and Netflix merging was purely an April Fools’ prank), there is no way that the movie will be available on Prime Video as part of your subscription. Nor will it be available on Amazon Video to stream. What about on DVD and Blu-ray? This is a little trickier to answer. Some Netflix Originals do make their way to DVD and Blu-ray. This is more common with TV shows than the movies, so you’ll be able to get the likes of House of Cards, Fuller House, and The Last Kingdom on DVD. The Netflix movies don’t tend to get the DVD releases, because Netflix wants to make its subscription service valuable with exclusive content. The need to make it valuable is more important now than ever before. With Disney and WarnerMedia creating new subscription services and removing content from the streaming site, we may see fewer Netflix Originals make it to DVD and Blu-ray. This is bad news for those of you who prefer Amazon or want to own Unicorn Store on DVD and Blu-ray. However, Netflix is the only place for it. What movies are you excited to come out? Which movies and shows would you like to see come to Amazon Prime Video? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Watch 1000s of TV shows and movies with a 30-day FREE trial of Amazon Prime<doc-sep>Did you ever want a pet unicorn when you were a kid? We didn’t, but we’re pretty sure we knew kids who did (we also know a lot of little ones now who would love to have one). Usually those dreams fade when you grow up and realize that unicorns, you know, don’t exist. But what if a person grew up still believing, and actually getting a chance to get her wish? It’s the subject of Unicorn Store, which is produced and directed by its star, Oscar winner Brie Larson. Read on for more on this whimsical film… UNICORN STORE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? The Gist: Kit (Brie Larson) is a young woman who has always believed in the power of mystical things like unicorns. Even into her adulthood, she still likes to talk to her Care Bears and watch Rainbow Brite reruns. But she ends up flunking out of art school because she continues to paint murals with rainbows and wizards and unicorns instead of what her teachers consider “real” art. Even now, she wishes she had her very own pet unicorn, even though she knows they don’t exist. Back home with her parents, Gene (Bradley Whitford) and Gladys (Joan Cusack), she finally decides to buckle down and get a temp job. She gets one at a PR agency, whose vice president, Gary (Hamish Linklater), takes a creepy shine to her. He wants to see what she can do with a deadly boring vacuum cleaner campaign. While she works on that, she keeps getting colorful invitations to visit a place called “The Store,” which promises exactly what she wants. When she gets to The Store, she meets a pink-clad salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) with tinsel in his hair. He says he can sell her a unicorn, and shows her around to rooms where the unicorns are cleaned (it looks like a girl’s bedroom), fed (looks like a restaurant) and more. Kit so wants that unicorn that she’ll follow the salesman’s rules. She meets a hardware store employee named Virgil (Mamoudou Athie), who agrees to build a stable for her, knowing nothing about how to build stuff. But the salesman also requires a good home environment, which becomes difficult to achieve when she tells her parents the truth during a “truth circle” on one of their camping trips with at-risk teens. Will she even believe in unicorns by the time one is ready for her? What Movies Will It Remind You Of? : Imagine Big, but the person who hasn’t grown up emotionally is actually a real grown-up, not a kid who wishes he were grown-up. Performance Worth Watching: Joan Cusack, as usual, does the most with a thankless role. As Kit’s mom Gladys, she takes the brunt of her daughter’s immaturity, having to watch her 27-year-old daughter not just express herself artistically like an 11-year-old, but pout and argue like one, too. In a scene after Kit’s campfire freak-out, Gladys reassures Kit that “the most grown-up thing you can do is fail at things you really care about.” Cusack has two Oscar nominations for playing roles like this, and for good reason; she completely holds her own with Larson, who won an Oscar for Room three years ago. Memorable Dialogue: The salesman: “Here we have our fine dining establishment, or ‘haysturant’, we like to call it.” Single Best Shot: After the talk with her mom, Kit decides to be herself including caking the vacuum cleaner she’s writing the campaign for in paint and glitter. She also comes to the presentation in a spectacular, fringe-filled outfit. Sex and Skin: Nah, not in this film. Our Take: Unicorn Store is Brie Larson’s first directorial effort; the movie is written by Samantha McIntyre. If you see reviews that say that the film is a reunion of Larson and Jackson after they starred together in Captain Marvel, then they have it backwards; this movie was first shown at TIFF in 2017, with Netflix buying the distribution rights and finally releasing it now. Which makes us wonder: A newly-minted Oscar winner is starring, directing and producing this film that also has Sam Jackson in it. Why hold it for a year-and-a-half? Probably Captain Marvel‘s release had something to do with it, to get some juice from that. But it’s likely because Unicorn Store is a deeply strange movie that has some inspired moments, some thuddingly dull moments, and some other moments that are just headscratchers. How could we not love Jackson as the salesman, who is supposed to be this lighthearted and friendly guy, but also says things like the unicorns are covered in “leaves and berries and shit” when they arrive? We’ve already talked about Cusack, and Whitford is solid as usual. We’re even impressed with Athie as Virgil, who goes along with Kit’s whims even though he’s much more grounded than she is. The problem, and we hate to say this, is with Larson, both in front of and behind the camera. We know how good of an actress she can be, and in some scenes — like the one with Cusack we mention above — we see that come out. But it’s one thing to play Kit as an adult who refuses to grow up (most of us who are much older than she is are in her boat), but it’s another thing to play her as someone who has the emotional capacity of a preteen. Instead of making Kit look whimsical and unique, she makes Kit look petulant and in need of some serious therapy. Having Kit talk about her “famous temper tantrums” while seeing the face of a person who is almost 30 is just disconcerting. And there are some editing issues, at least when it comes to the movie’s storytelling, which speaks to Larson’s inexperience as a director. When she presents her vacuum cleaner idea, she’s accompanied by Sabrina (Martha MacIsaac) and mailroom guy Brock (Ryan Hansen), who are enthusiastic about the presentation, and we’re not sure why.<doc-sep>
Unicorns are almost universally associated with girlhood. The desire for the horned creature to be real stems from the same impulse that gives us “horse girls,” sent Robot Unicorn Attack viral, and popularized Lisa Frank. That level of fantasy — those bright colors, that glitter — can only exist free of the responsibilities and monotony of adulthood. Adult women wear suits, take their lives seriously, eat kale, and long for “bikini-ready” bodies. Or so Netflix’s Unicorn Store would have you believe. The ambition behind Brie Larson’s directorial debut is admirable. Learning to grow up while still being yourself is an endlessly repeatable lesson where movies are concerned, and it’s told less often from the perspective of young women. However, the script, written by Samantha McIntyre (and which Larson actually auditioned for — and failed to get — some years ago), is so intent on embracing the “be yourself” ethos that it exposes the limitations of its own message. The very first scene of Unicorn Store — a montage of home videos of a precocious child melts into footage of Kit (Larson), now grown, energetically painting the wall — sets the tone for everything that follows. By the end, there’s colorful paint splotched perfectly over her face and clothes, and she finishes off her masterwork by blowing glitter onto the canvas. When she turns around, it’s revealed that she’s in the middle of an art class. Everyone else has painted within the canvas, and has dressed in dark colors in contrast to Kit’s white or rainbow-patterned clothing. Her instructor gives her a failing grade, and disapprovingly shakes his head. It’s a quick, easy way of communicating Kit’s free spirit, but also the kind of signalling that inherently devalues the characters around her. For better or worse, Unicorn Store feels like a movie made at least a decade too late, plucked from a time before Garden State, before the “manic pixie dream girl” trope was re-evaluated, and before “geek girl vs. cheerleader” was recognized as unnecessarily pitting women against each other. When Kit finally gets a job as an office temp, her female coworkers are either mousy or mean girls, and implicitly derided for their modest ambitions. Naturally, Kit is meant for more than office work. Multiple colorful envelopes arrive to invite her to “The Store,” where she discovers that her favorite childhood animal, the unicorn, may actually be within her reach. The mysterious Salesman (Larson’s Captain Marvel and Kong: Skull Island co-star Samuel L. Jackson) offers to sell her one — so long as she meets a certain set of conditions, including providing a negativity-free environment and a suitable stable. To have a unicorn, she has to prove that she deserves one. Though the unicorn may be a fantastical creature, it can’t be everything the film is asking it to be. The creature stands for the promise of companionship, for embracing one’s unique voice, for never letting go of one’s inner child ... and for the compromises necessary in growing up? In trying to flesh out the characters around Kit — her emotional support camp-running parents (Bradley Whitford and Joan Cusack), her two nice co-workers (Martha MacIsaac and Ryan Hansen) — Unicorn Store is forced to use more colors than the black and white demanded by Kit’s unassailably loud personality. These are characters who have accepted some measure of compromise in their lives, and not necessarily for the worse. To put it differently, adulthood means that no one can monitor how much candy you eat anymore — but if you eat too much, you’ll make yourself sick. The problem is that Unicorn Store is built on a foundation of “all candy, all the time.” The best parts of the movie are either insufficiently explored (Kit’s sense that she’s a disappointment to her parents, which most of us are familiar with); tertiary (Jackson’s brightly patterned suits); or regrettably male-centric in a movie about a young woman’s coming of age (Hamish Linklater and Mamoudou Athie deliver standout performances as Kit’s creepy boss and the hapless hardware store employee roped into helping her build a stable). On top of it all, the sense that the gung-ho energy Kit projects is not necessarily tenable ends up coming true in the film’s final moments, shattering the film’s own messaging and stranding Larson as a director. There’s no room for her to do anything particularly interesting given how much energy has to be spent just holding the movie together.