An animated Netflix movie a few speaking pony who goals of changing into a people rock music star isn’t the obvious alternative for an acclaimed Grammy-winning musician seeking to make her appearing debut. However Brittany Howard has all the time marched to the beat of her personal drum, each because the frontwoman of the beloved Alabama Shakes and in her closely praised solo work. And in “Thelma the Unicorn,” she’s discovered an unexpectedly ultimate automobile to showcase her earthy, muscular voice, bringing sufficient energy and soul to the half that she will make an on-paper generic youngsters’ film really feel contemporary and impressed.
Tailored from a kids’s e book collection by Aaron Blabey, “Thelma the Unicorn” opens with Howard’s titular mid-sized, fizzy-maned pony rocking out on stage at “Sparklepalooza” together with her band the Rusty Buckets. It’s a dream, in fact, as youngsters’ motion pictures not often begin with their leads on high of the world. In actual life, the Rusty Buckets are performing out of the previous barn the place Thelma and her right-hand man and BFF Otis (Will Forte) work, getting ready for the massive audition which may assist them get a spot on the music pageant lineup.
The expertise from the band — and notably from Thelma — is quickly apparent to the viewer, however each the haughty present horses and the people the cattle work for don’t take this pack of misfits critically. And when that massive audition rolls round, a nervous Thelma is left devastated when the judges reject her earlier than she will sing a single notice, bluntly informing her that as a “forgettable farm pony,” she lacks the “proper look” to be a star.
So, Thelma cosigns herself to a lifetime of pushing carts throughout a area — earlier than a convoluted accident involving a carrot and a truck carrying buckets of pink paint and glitter causes her to resemble a unicorn come to life. Instantaneously, her downside of mixing in with the gang goes away, and he or she features swarms of admirers by performing a pop-rock ballad that goes viral on-line.
The information of a singing, shiny unicorn catches the eye of a salt-of-the-earth rock music producer Peggy (Maliaka Mitchell), who provides the Rusty Buckets a recording mission. It additionally captures the eye of slimy expertise agent Vic Diamond (Jemaine Clement), who swoops in to rework Thelma right into a solo act, making her a world-beloved famous person virtually in a single day. In trade, Thelma loses her friendship together with her band and grows more and more uneasy about how these screaming hordes at her concert events don’t see the true her.
“Be your self” and “authenticity is necessary” are usually not messages that may shock any mother and father who watch alongside their kids; the whole lot from “Aladdin” to “Shrek” has already coated this territory fairly completely earlier than. “Thelma the Unicorn” doesn’t do a ton to shake up your expectations for something that may occur, and its biggest weak spot is how rigidly formulaic its journey typically feels. And but, the movie — directed by Jared Hess and Lynn Wang — nonetheless manages to typically delight, because of the comedy and appeal packed into its dusty bones.
Hess wrote the movie along with his spouse Jerusha, and if the duo sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of they’re answerable for the 2004 cult traditional “Napoleon Dynamite.” You possibly can really feel the DNA of that coming-of-age comedy all around the movie, even past its lead Jon Heder’s presence voicing llama Reggie in Thelma’s band. The animation model (courtesy o French firm Mikros) renders the animals in a reasonably generic cutesy model, and the environments are equally uninspired, however the people have an interesting, rubbery grossness that feels apiece with the pimply youngsters of “Napoleon Dynamite”; Vic, along with his comically giant pretend enamel and bushy face, stands out as a very repulsive creation, in a good approach.
The script is amusingly foolish, filling out its world the place people and animals converse usually and a narwal is the world’s greatest pop star with puns that embrace subbing Instagram for “Pigstagram.” The jokes come at a frequent sufficient pace and with a profitable sufficient hit fee that the movie largely avoids getting slowed down by the easy-to-predict story beats, and it’s notably profitable when it casts a mildly satirical have a look at the music business. Beneath Vic’s contract, Thelma releases her music underneath “Large Sellout Data” and will get her genuine root-inspired rock music subbed out for generic pop-rap generated by a literal algorithm.
Sure, it’s a bit bizarre to see jokes about algorithms coming from a Netflix authentic, however “Thelma the Unicorn” presents its bleak imaginative and prescient of the predatory music business and the plight of the trendy superstar as an outsized cartoon, with simply sufficient chunk to really feel related; a throwaway gag a few screaming Thelma the Unicorn stan presenting her with adoption papers that may legally make him her son says extra about fashionable superstar tradition in 20 seconds than HBO’s “The Idol” managed in six episodes. Elsewhere, Thelma ascends to the highest partially via a pretend publicity relationship with a TikTok well-known (effectively, VideoTubeTube well-known) horse Danny Stallion (Fred Armisen), who’s identified for his surfer boy have an effect on and gross out movies of chewing cud. In actuality, he’s a wise child learning to develop into a mind surgeon, however as he cheerfully explains to Thelma, he’s “gotta pay for med college” in some way.
Armisen is completely forged within the function, and he’s only one voice in an ensemble so stacked {that a} ringer like Kristen Shaal may be relegated to a one-scene cameo. Forte is splendidly candy because the nerdy Otis, whereas Heder is hilarious because the spacey Reggie. Clement is snarling and campy because the vicious Vic, and “Righteous Gems” star Edi Patterson brings her memorably bratty line deliveries to a put-upon and vindictive expertise agent trying to sabotage Thelma’s meteoric rise to fame. Even Zach Galifianakis reveals up, in a tiny function that also will get nice mileage out of his singular comedic timing.
Everybody within the forged nonetheless pales in comparison with Howard, and the chance to listen to her sing is probably going the primary attraction for any grownup who would select to look at. There’s no clear breakout of the unique roots-inflected pop rock songs featured within the movie (the music is credited to Dreamworks vet John Powell), however Howard is so pretty performing them that it doesn’t matter. Her wealthy, highly effective voice makes each notice hit with unimaginable pressure, and provides emotion that makes the pivotal turning factors within the movie way more highly effective than the script can handle.
Even outdoors of the musical numbers, Howard is terrific, sufficient that it’s a shock to study that that is her first time doing any kind of appearing, a lot much less voice appearing. She’s splendidly down-to-Earth because the decided however insecure Thelma, with an earnestness that fully sells the scripts closely broadcasted morals. If the remainder of the movie does err in direction of the marginally generic, Howard offers “Thelma the Unicorn” an ideal lead that you simply’ll haven’t any bother rooting for.
Grade: B
“Thelma the Unicorn” is now streaming on Netflix.