Death of a Unicorn

Não estava nem um pouco empolgado com mais um da A24, e nem havia me tocado do grande elenco. E não é que o filme funciona muito bem? Em grande parte pela excelente direção, já na construção da cena inicial de atropelamento do unicórnio, já sabemos que tem lentes competentes por trás. Claro que os desdobramentos de como os personagens, especialmente os secundários, vão lidar para tentar se aproveitar economicamente da situação soaram meio jogados, com certa displicência. Mas ainda assim, os personagens centrais seguram o drama, até mesmo quando evolui para a correria de sempre. Como a direção é segura com o material, não economiza no sangue e tem um ótimo timing para as mortes, o que garante uma boa sessão de entretenimento, e um final bem divertido. Grata surpresa.

There’s this thing that happens when you’re a teacher, or a mentor, or just someone who really gives a **** about potential. You watch someone you know is brilliant deliver something that’s good—really good, even—but not their best. And you’re left in this liminal place, where admiration knots with disappointment. That’s where Death of a Unicorn left me. This is A24’s latest offering, and like most of their catalog, it begins with promise. No, not promise—magic. The opening hits hard: the pacing is kinetic, conversations feel sharp and alive, and the stakes don’t rise so much as escalate in this orchestrated dance of absurdism and sincerity. It’s like someone spliced the DNA of Swiss Army Man with a dash of Paddington gone pagan, and somehow it worked. But then. The spell weakens. Somewhere past the midpoint, it begins to cave in on itself. What once felt daringly surreal turns familiar. The absurd loses its teeth, and suddenly you see the strings—the mechanics of plot, the too-obvious MacGuffin (the unicorn horn, of course), wrapped in mystery just long enough for you to think, Please don’t do the thing I think you’re gonna do. And then they do. Exactly that. The switcheroo. The inevitable handoff. A trope dressed in glitter and hoofprints. What frustrates me the most isn’t the failure—it’s the unrealized potential. There are ideas here—rich, weird, textured ideas—that never get their due. Like the character who huffs unicorn powder and his eyes glow like he's unlocked some arcane cheat code. That could’ve been something! Give me some body horror, give me unicorn-mutation, give me healing-factor-Wolverine-type vibes. Let him sprout a goddamn horn. But no—it’s teased, and then it just... isn’t. And that’s the pattern. Even the climax flirts with something strange and possibly cosmic. Spoiler: there's this shimmering, sci-fi dark matter moment—a ripple in reality that hints at consequences or transcendence. But it stays exactly that: a ripple. Not a wave. Not a flood. Not even a splash. It’s like watching someone stroke the surface of something unknowable... and then walk away. No payoff. No consequence. Just cinematic pre-cum. You almost climax, but not quite. It’s this weird tension: it both overreaches and underdelivers. Instead of doubling down on its chaos, it backs into a corner and plays safe. And once that happens, the absurd doesn’t feel absurd anymore—it feels calculated. Tame. Which brings me to the ending. Let’s be honest: it’s Disney. Not classic Disney, but like, post-modern, irony-poisoned Disney. The unicorn family is reunited. Cue the swelling music. Cue the sentimental glaze. It’s “gore princess” energy, or better yet, “Disney horse girl but make it necro.” And honestly? If they were gonna lean that way, they should’ve galloped into it. Go full silhouette-against-the-sunset. Paul Rudd riding a unicorn with his daughter, straight-faced, into a glowing pink horizon. So dumb it loops back to genius. That ending would’ve committed. It would’ve earned the cliche by owning it. Instead, what we got felt... safe. Bland. Like they built an entire twisted mythos and then abandoned it at the altar of digestibility. And that’s why, despite how much I enjoyed the ride—and I did—I can’t help but feel that twinge of disappointment. This is a transitional movie. If there was a Unicorn film for a past generation, this is the one for the weird, ironic, late-millennial and Gen Z cohort. It’s for the horse girls who became sad women, for the kids who loved Lisa Frank and grew up into therapists and cynics. My niece is ten. She’d adore this film. And I mean that sincerely. This would be her Unicorn movie—the one she rewatches, quotes, turns into a sticker on her water bottle. And maybe one day, she’ll see it again as an adult and laugh at how it made her feel, while still kind of feeling it. So I land here: This movie earns a 80/100—not because it’s perfect, but because it had the capacity to be. And sometimes you give that grade not as a reward, but as a challenge. And that's the paradox: I liked it. I really liked it. But it could’ve been mythic.