Last week, I watched Unicorn Store on Netflix. Someone raved about it on Instagram, so I thought I should give it a chance. I don’t like getting overexcited about movies. I keep my expectations low to let myself be surprised rather than disappointed. I’m pleased to report that I came out of the viewing experience elated.
Unicorn Store may seem simplistic, but it’s a complex story about a girl named Kit (Brie Larson). The story begins with her failing art school for being too whimsical. She spends the next day on her parent’s couch, but that very night she caves to the pressure of the world around her and gets a job as a Temp. Kit becomes your everyday office gal—muted and bored out of her mind—until she’s offered the chance to adopt a unicorn.
Here’s “Corporate Kit” on her first day. Does anyone else want that yellow backpack?
The film was directed by Brie Larson and written by Samantha McIntyre, two women who just get it. The dry humour in this film is so masterful, it’s easily missed. One of my favourite lines is Kit defending her ex-art teacher: “No, he’s not an idiot. He’s the first artist to put a stick in a box.” A joke so feminist, I wish I came up with it myself.
I love how the film plays with colour; the office and business aspects are extra drab, yet Kit is always so colourful. Even when she tries to hide her inner self in the corporate world she wears a yellow backpack and when she’s in the woods, she sports a puffy rainbow jacket.
There are many great reviews out there praising the film’s feminism, but, I didn’t find one talking about what I took away from the film.
Note: Spoilers beyond this point.
The film is many things at once. Everyone can take away what they need; that’s what makes art so great. Among them, Unicorn Store is a coming of age story that demonstrates how young adults struggle to settle into “adulthood”. Mainly because being an adult in 2019 means losing your personality, becoming a corporate drone and getting sexually harassed.
The film advocates following your dreams and being yourself as the path to happiness. Kit and her female coworkers’ miserable experiences at the office are the perfect contrast. Everything that’s wrong and inappropriate in everyday workplaces is pointed out: from women working late alone in the dark, to them being surrounded by men in the board room.
In one scene, a male duo pitches their advertisement idea for the “Mystic Vac”. Their pitch is a woman in a hot pink minidress, holding a baby and the vacuum while taking a selfie.
At the end of the sexist presentation, the marketing lead (and only woman in the room) says with awe in her voice, “Maybe one day I can look like that when I vacuum.”
Sound familiar?
Throughout the film, Kit visits The Store multiple times, trying to convince The Salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) that she’s worthy of a real live Unicorn.
He tells her that she needs to do three things before she can be granted a unicorn: 1) build a worthy home 2) have a stable income and 3) create a loving and supportive family environment.
Ultimately, I saw the Unicorn as a metaphor for having a child. Kit always wanted a sibling, a friend to play with as a kid. What she’s looking for is eternal love, and isn’t that what we are promised by society when we give birth?
When Kit goes back to The Store with Virgil (Mamoudou Athie) to prove to him that she’s truly getting a unicorn, she finds the store to be empty. Everything’s disappeared. She cries and says, “If I gotta girl, I was gonna name her Zoe, or Beyoncé.”
After seeing the empty store and hearing Kit’s story, Virgil assumes that Kit is naive and was conned by some evil man. It’s condescending. It’s easier for him to believe that she made it all up, that his world view was right all along, instead of trusting her.
In the end, Kit realizes that the Unicorn won’t solve her problems. Her life is wonderful with or without the Unicorn. Maybe she was building a home for her childhood self all along.
Some of the reviews worth reading: