(courtesy IMP Awards)
When your 11-year-old niece, who fancies herself as a nascent YouTuber, and who has the personality and presentation chops to deliver on her aspirations, says via snappily-recorded video that you need to watch and review the new Thelma the Unicorn film, you can’t, of course, say no.
And honestly why would you want to?
Honouring your delightful niece’s wishes aside, this adaptation of the book of the same name by Aaron Blabey is an unalloyed, all-singing, all-moshing, technicolour glittery delight that leaves you feeling like being who you are JUST as you are is all you ever need to be.
It’s a reasonably straightforward message that pops up in many an animated feature film, but there’s something deeply appealing, not only about Thelma’s exuberance, but also her sweet sincerity and pink and silver livery that makes you lap up this particular delivery of this timeless message without reservation.
The titular mid-sized pony protagonist (voiced by Brittany Howard) is one of those characters who you like right from the start – she’s excitable, musical, ambitious, extrovertive, a dreamer who images herself diving into an enthusiastic crowd of music fans even when the landing pad is actually a bale of straw and she has two stalwart friends aka bandmates, Otis the donkey (Will Forte) and Reggie the Llama (Jon Heder) who support her with the kind of unconditional friendship anyone would be lucky to have.
In so many ways, Thelma has a dream life, and while she might be carting manure for a living (complete with talkative flies that are hilarious) instead of fronting her must-perform-at musical festival, Sparklepalooza, she can’t complain about much else.
Still … STILL … Thelma wants her name up in lights, the spotlight on her and her band, and as they knock out tunes in the barn, support by a super friendly farmer who finds it not a bit odd that his animals have musical instruments, the gift of speech and song and access to pads and pens, she dreams of a world where all of that has come true and she is defined by big city success and not small farm anonymity.
But who wants to listen to a small unremarkable, so Thelma thinks, brown pony, no matter how resonantly powerful and beautiful her voice may be?
It appears no one wants to give a big break; that is until a freak accident covers her in pink and silver glitter in perfectly-placed proportions, and a video of her singing into her new sparkly persona goes viral attracting the attention of self-serving music manager, Vic Diamond (Jemaine Clement who LIVES the part) and the ire of established popstar Nikki Narwhal (Ally Dixon) who is vehemently unimpressed with being relegated to yesterday’s music sensation.
It’s at this point things go both wonderfully right and horrifically wrong for Thelma.
In the most message-heavy part of Thelma the Unicorn, Thelma is feted as the next big thing and gets all the adulation and success she’s ever dreamed of; BUT it comes at a massive price with the aspiring pony-sized singer forced to ditch her band, her musical integrity – her pairing with vapid but knowing viral singer Danny Stallion (Fred Armisen) is very funny and desperately melancholic all at once – and any sense of achieving this on her own merits.
Her own dreams are sidelined in favour of the corporate music machine, and while Vic makes a ton of cash – there’s one scene where’s he’s in his penthouse apartment surrounded by cash and it’s hilarious in its debauched success – Thelma finds everything she is and wants slipping further and further from her grasp.
Does that all make Thelma the Unicorn sound like a downer of an animated feature?
The good news, that’s the last thing it is; while it doesn’t possess top-tier Pixar level emotionality, the kind that makes you feel like someone is hollowing out your soul and filling it back again, the film does really nail what it’s like to sell out everything you are and long for simply for some facsimile of it.
The worst part is that Thelma is without her friends, and while Otis and Reggie, and their legendary record producer Peggy Purvis (Maliaka Mitchell) don’t abandon her, though they surely have good cause to as Thelma temporarily loses the plot and a decent chunk of her inherent integrity, our plucky if lost protagonist finds herself all alone in a world that adores her but has no idea who she really is.
Of course, it all ends up happily ever after – no prizes for guessing where it all lands; Thelma the Unicorn might be inventive, fun, cute and colourful but it doesn’t exactly the animated film mould and it goes precisely where you’d expect it to.
But honestly, that’s no bad thing since that’s exactly what you want for Thelma who wises up, finds success on her own terms and vanquishes the ne’er-do-wells who try to take her down as she does so.
In many ways, Thelma the Unicorn the movie absolutely channels the very essence of the book.
While there’s a LOT more plot going on the film – fair enough too; delightful though the board book is, it’s a bare-bones plot that will not sustain a movie’s substantial narrative demands all on its own – it is very much in tune with the book’s theme of staying true to your authentic life and only be doing so, finding true contentment and peace.
It’s a big slab of existential rumination and it works a treat in the book, and the film, which ticks all the expected boxes of plucky protagonist, meaningful message, comedy and seriousness sparring for narrative space to perfect effect, and while it’s not exactly an out-of-the-box feat of highly original imaginative storytelling, it’s still a lot of heartwarming fun and heartfelt messaging that makes you feel better for having seen it.
Oh, and it confirms that you should always listen to happily insistent 11-year-old nieces – they know what they’re talking about and their recommendations should always be heeded.
The book upon which this delightful film is based …