UNICORN STORE – Review by MaryAnn Johanson

Bring on the weird, difficult women. I have had my fill of kooky, cheerful manic pixies for whom life is just one grand goofy freespirited adventure. I am so ready for more women like Unicorn Store’s Kit, who is prickly, stubborn, a tad self-centered, occasionally a bit mean, and very very frustrated with her messy, unsatisfying life. This is a movie that dares — and I’m being only a little sarcastic here — to say, “You know what, swanning around as a creative eccentric who lives inside your own unmonetizable dreams is not a recipe for easygoing happiness in our conformist for-profit culture.”

We need more movies like Unicorn Store, with its piquant mix of whimsy and snark; its defiant insistence that it’s not crazy to think you’re crazy for wanting to forge your own oddball path, because yeah, it’s hard; and — maybe most of all — its resolute embrace of the uncool girliness of a love of sherbet colors and a penchant for rainbows and sparkles. Because everything coded “stuff girls like” and “what women are into” has been denigrated by our pop culture for way too long in exactly the opposite way of how “stuff boys like” and “what men are into” has been celebrated. Enough of this double standard. Unicorn Store — star Brie Larson’s feature directorial debut — skewers it. Continue reading…