Unicorn Store. Brie Larson. 2017. ☆☆☆★★★
Huh. Brie Larson? But she’s Captain Marvel? Two movies released at the same time?
Errr:
It screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released on April 5, 2019, by Netflix.
So it’s two years old, but now suddenly it’s a “Netflix Original”? Hm… perhaps that means that nobody would pick up the movie for distribution? But then Netflix did… for release at the same time as Captain Marvel?
Anyway: This movie was released on Netflix yesterday, which means that I’ve officially caught up with the Netflix release schedule, and further entries in this blog series will be pretty close to release dates. Probably.
This is a cute little movie. It goes for a zany cooky vibe. Think… er… Yeah, like that TV series Dead Like Me. Perhaps it aims for Wes Anderson, but it hits Bryan Fuller.
It’s like it doesn’t have confidence in itself. Brie Larson, when confronted with craziness, is given lines like “This is crazy!” And all scenes of wonder are fully scored with tinkly winkly orchestral music, like they have to tell the audience, yet again, that something wondrous and kooky is happening before their very eyes.
So it doesn’t really help that much that Brie Larson is charming and Samuel L Jackson does his usual magical wise guy bit.
But there’s little bits in here that it’s impossible not to snicker at. And the characters are charming. It’s OK, but it works best when it avoids the drama.
I can see how the final scenes gave everybody cancer. It’s a lot.
This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.