If you’re going to cast Paul Rudd, let him be funny. It’s not complicated. You have to actively prevent Paul Rudd from being funny. That is a decision you make. “Stop being funny, Paul Rudd,” you have to say.
Paul Rudd is not funny in Death of a Unicorn. Very little is, actually. Will Poulter is funny. That isn’t a joke that Will Poulter is little. He is just the only thing in the movie that works. The rest of it is about as creative, fun, and free-spirited as a unicorn gif on a Tumblr blog. For example, at one point somebody snorts a line of ground unicorn horn like it is cocaine. Then their eyes glow. Ooh! That’s it. Their eyes glow. That’s the crazy, wild thing that happens: CGI contacts.
Writer/director Alex Scharfman’s stunningly misguided endeavor isn’t just missing some kind of je ne sais quoi, it is missing every bit of the quoi. Taking place over one long afternoon and evening, the trailer has shown the entirety of the film. Normally, that is an indictment of the marketing, but there’s simply not a lot happening here.
Corporate lawyer Elliott (Rudd) and his brooding daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega), hit a unicorn with their car on their way to speak with a very rich big pharma CEO named Odell (Richard E. Grant), who is dying of cancer. Odell’s wife, Belinda (Téa Leoni), and son, Shepard (Will Poulter), are as insufferable and vapid as the head of the household. When they discover that the unicorn’s body has healing properties, it is a race to harvest its corpse for profit before its angry parents arrive.
That’s it.
Somehow, Death of a Unicorn takes itself simultaneously too seriously and too cavalierly. Its hottest takes are that pharmaceutical executives are greedy and that fathers should spend time with their kids. Its funniest joke is Will Poulter’s delivery on the word “mommy.” It is laboriously unfun and almost purposefully unfunny, which is something that a movie of this ilk cannot and should not be, especially when it boasts Paul Rudd among its cast.
The best description of the film is that it feels like what a fake A24 movie would look like if it was included in another movie, like someone played A24 Mad Libs to arrive at this misfire. This is the precise type of film that people who don’t like A24 films think all A24 films are like.
Worst of all, and there has been a lot of not-great already described above, Death of a Unicorn has no style or personality. None. The score and soundtrack are both flat and unremarkable. The editing is erratic. It alternates between being too dark and just plain ugly to look at. It is lifeless. And the unicorns look bad. Getting that design right seems like something fundamental that should have been tackled immediately, not unlike letting Paul Rudd be funny.
There, now people can’t claim I always give A24 movies a pass.
Grade = D
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Rain Jokinen at Mulling Movies says “I’m all for an eat-the-rich story, and we seem to be getting a lot of them these last few years (hmmmm….wonder why?), and Death of a Unicorn does have a few satisfying moments of carnage. But its uneven tone, and a third act that drags ultimately sinks the film. The unicorns may have bite, but this satire does not.”
MontiLee Stormer at MovieReelist says “Death of a Unicorn was a delightful, if slightly gory surprise, reminding me a little of Ready or Not (2019) and Violent Night (2022) with its treatment of the 0.01% without going fully swinging the other way with a proletariat ‘for the people’ message.”
Paul Lê at Tales From the Paulside says “What we have here is a silly, genre-coded comedy that is rough in places, and it never approaches the charm and audacity you crave from a fuller spectacle, however, for something about killer unicorns impaling the greedy rich, it works in a pinch. Sometimes, fine is fine.”