Jared and Jenusha Hess made a name for themselves with the quirky comedy Napoleon Dynamite but recently earned status as Academy Award nominees for their animated short Ninety-Five Senses. Thus, hopes were certainly high for their next project, the Netflix animated feature Thelma the Unicorn. Those hopes are misguided.
Inspired by the children’s book by Aaron Blabey, Thelma the Unicorn tells the story of a common farm pony who seizes the chance to make her dream come true when a chance incident causes her to look like a unicorn, only to realize that all that glitters is not… unicorns? With a pretty brief runtime, one would think that this would at least feel mercifully short. Unfortunately, the movie feels so uninspired that it goes by slowly nonetheless.
As is the case with most kids’ movies, Thelma the Unicorn has a very positive message for younger audiences. It’s a pretty straightforward underdog story, and it succeeds in being heartwarming in that regard. Beyond that, the film also offers learning opportunities for kids about the importance of being true to oneself and others and the value of pursuing one’s dreams.
Thelma the Unicorn is bland but well-meaning
However, in exploring these common themes, the Hesses write a script that feels frustratingly generic. The duo tries their best to adapt source material that’s only a few dozen pages, but everything they add to the story is bland. Granted, kids are more likely to be won over by the idea of a singing unicorn alone, and Thelma is a likable enough character.
If there’s one unequivocally good thing to come out of Thelma the Unicorn, it’s that Brittany Howard deserves to be a megastar. Although she’s achieved quite a bit of success as a musician, including Grammy nominations, this voice performance is her first foray as an actress. She nails the musical aspects of the role — not that one would expect any less — but she also fares quite well with the more emotional aspects of the underdog story.
While one would expect that a movie with a musician as its lead would have a great soundtrack, Thelma the Unicorn underwhelms in this department. The track being pushed as the lead single, “The Fire Inside,” is actually one of the most forgettable tunes from the soundtrack. That’s not to say it’s bad — none of the music on the soundtrack is “bad,” really — but for the supposed highlight to be so generic and unaffecting is certainly disappointing.
Unfortunately, Howard is also such a brightly shining star that she overshadows everyone else in the cast. Some of the recognizable voices in the cast include Will Forte, Jemaine Clement, Jon Heder, Edi Paterson, and Zack Galifianakis. Although none of these actors is bad, they also aren’t well-used. The only one who makes much of an impression is Clement, but he — now more than ever — feels like he desperately wants to be David Bowie.
Thelma the Unicorn has the quality of animation one would expect from a streaming animated feature. It has abundant color and rudimentary character design, with the animals meant to be adorable and the humans mostly designed to be ugly. It definitely seems much more visually inspired by Wang’s background in children’s television than Hess’s recent Academy Award-nominated work on Ninety-Five Senses.
Is Thelma the Unicorn Worth Watching?
In many ways, Thelma the Unicorn feels less like a satisfying film in and of itself and more like a feature-length pilot for an inevitable spin-off show. Unfortunately, it is equally inevitable that any continuation would lose the few elements that make the movie at least somewhat bearable. That being said, the audience for which this film is made doesn’t have very high standards, so its manic energy may be enough to satisfy them.
Thelma the Unicorn is now streaming on Netflix.
4/10
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