I Believe in Unicorns

2015
6.2| 1h20m| NR| en
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Follows the lyrical journey of an imaginative teenage girl who runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter, but not even unicorns can save her now.

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Reviews

GamerTab That was an excellent one.
Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
Mimi Leggett Unicorns is a truly unique film. Its whimsical, yet bold aesthetic enhances the storyline, which diverges drastically from most coming of aged films about teenage girls. The creative and visually stunning special effects use light and stop motion in enchanting ways that depict Davina's internal condition with a relateable clarity. These magical realist representations illustrate the main character's psyche in a deep and intellectual way that female 16-year-old characters are unfortunately rarely endowed with in films. As someone who often gets bored visually with contemporary films, Unicorns kept me spellbound. It is a feast for the eyes. I had been able to see more films like it when I was 16, in which the story does not (Spoiler Alert) end predictably, with a romantic and heteronormative jaunt into the sunset.
Laura Altair All teenage girls need to see this I Believe in Unicorns. Or for that matter, anyone who ever was a teenage girl needs to. Leah Meyerhoff somehow manages to capture the human condition so perfectly in this film. It shows the ugly little details of life and relationships that nobody bothers to do in most movies and leaves you with a gut wrenching feeling (but in a good way). That's what really sets it apart. Natalia Dyer gives an extremely brave performance as Davina, a 16 year old girl juggling school, taking care of her mother with MS, and a new relationship with Sterling (Peter Vack), an older "bad boy". Sterling starts out as her "unicorn", but that starts to change as they become closer.It's also beautifully shot, some of it on 16mm film which gives it a vintage, timeless feel. There is no use of modern technology throughout the entire film, which leaves you guessing whether it took place in the present day or some magic era that never existed. The stop motion sequences make it whimsical and fantastical.
Ayal Oren I Believe in Unicorns, is a nice starting point for director Leah Meyerhoff (it's her first feature film). It has a great leading performance by Natalia Dyer, interesting usage of stop motion animation representing the memories and imagination of the movie's leading girl and an interesting twist on the generally familiar myth of the unicorn. On the other hand, it's not as original as its creator believe, and it has a big problem with the pacing and a smaller problem of the potentially loaded relationship between Davina and her mother, to which the director keeps implying but never really explores, while she does explore the relationship between the young lovers whose direction is figured out long before the movie get's there. When an 80 minutes movie feels too long, it means the director has a problem. Still, for her feature film debut Leah's command of the media is impressive, there's every likelihood she'll get the pace better next time.
gerald_valnderlaan I like this film. It has got heart, it has good intentions for the cinematic language that I so adore. I feel like the filmmaker is earnest and thoughtful with the script and the performances are very strong and show a lot of talent on her cinematic future. However, I've been following this movie online and keep seeing photos of the filmmaker, Meyerhoff at festivals. Great right? Well, yes and no. Yes, it's great the film is getting out there, it should! No because it's more that a little embarrassing to see a 38 year old woman wearing a unicorn prop on her head, as though she's so desperate to hype her film that she'll turn into a corny advertisement. Is this what cinema has come to? I should hope not, not in the cinema I know. I get it, you're supposed to do something "striking" and "wild" to stand out, but Miss Meyerhoff, if you need to walk around with a toy horn on your head to get press on your film, or to get attention, well that's just sad and pedestrian. Have some pride in yourself and your work. You are a talented filmmaker. Please take the horn off and have some respect for yourself, your collaborators and most importantly, for cinema.Besides the corny advertising, as a critic I do recommend the film. Don't let the harsh truths discourage you. It is a VERY strong film!