Review: Unicorn Boy

Unicorn Boy refers to writer/director Matty Kiel in trying to find their “true self”. Right from the opening of the film with the opening vanity card showing Matty making sure to let everyone know their pronouns of he/him which right away had me thinking “uh oh, here we go!” because I know this movie is going to be largely sponsored by the fine folks of Mt. Zoloft by way of Southern California. Sometimes this can lead to some interesting art, depression, anxiety, and mental illness seem to be the main focal ingredients of most of the independent animation that seems to be coming our way these days from America and Unicorn Boy makes sure to give us a chock full of these nuts in a beautifully-animated world rife with cumbersome dialogue.

You would think that the celebrity cast would be the highlights of an independent movie like this, but I found myself having more fun with the not-as-famous cast. Matty Kiel is a pretty good voice actor, showing a lot of emotional toll and taking the job seriously, I just only wish they wrote better dialogue (more on this later). Patton Oswalt as the voice of a unicorn sounds like a slam dunk, especially for fans of Syfy’s Happy, but for whatever reason he seemed a bit off opposite Maria Bamford’s slam dunk performance as Queen Junipero. Harold Perrineau checks in as guard Pantius but again the dialogue just really needed so much help here it was really difficult for me to get truly ingratiate in anyone’s performances during our time in the alternate unicorn world.

I probably had a lot more fun with the Silver Lake, California cast with Sethward voicing himself in what I think could be a full-blown spin-off a new animated comedy series all about Sethward and his probably unemployed friends having outdoor comedy shows that are interrupted by neighbors who have to wake up in the morning to go to work, the pitch being a poverty Seinfeld. In any case, the more grounded and non-unicorn heavy part of Unicorn Boy felt way more real to me than anything Matty was going through in their fantasy world, which really boiled down was a psychological collapse as a result of a broken heart, which, in all fairness to Matty I get, but if going through a break-up gets one so down that it swerves them into the tricky waters of gender dysphoria, are we really seeing the protagonist the victor here? Seems to me the ex-girlfriend probably got the best of being on the receiving end of the break up and we didn’t even get a chance to meet her to come to that conclusion. These are ideals that I think would’ve worked better in an animated comedy series rather than a ninety-minute film and I think deep down producer Neil Garguilo knows this but perhaps didn’t speak up.

Going the television route with this premise in an almost grown-up take on Fairly Oddparents would’ve given the show a small writers room that would’ve assisted with the dialogue that needed all sorts of help here. Everything said from Matty just sounded like watered down Taking Back Sunday lyrics when we’re in the unicorn world, but when they are working opposite other more human characters the back-and-forth is much improved which helps a bit, but Sethward does a lot of work in infusing the comedic elements in his lines that he may or may not have had a hand in punching up. Most of the time I felt like I was listening to a rant that perhaps could’ve worked just fine as a serial in a multitude of slam poetry nights which is just as apropo for the setting of which the film is derived.

The art direction of Unicorn Boy is phenomenal, and does enough to help the feature-length get a passing grade itself. The clearly John Kricfalusi-inspired character designs with a My Little Pony paint job lends itself quite favorably to the overall premise of the film, with my personal affinity being towards the more real-life sequences rather than anything fantasy. I get that the movie is meant to be a reflection of Matty trying to come to grips as to WHO they are and I’m not sure during the course of production of the movie that they haven’t had it all figured out just yet, but what they are is a talented visual artist and animator who needs to get a more season writing partner for the next romp.