My Review of Unicorns (2024)

 

Written by James Krishna Floyd

Directed by Sally El Hosaini And James Krishna Floyd

Aysha: "Would you have had sex with me the night we met if I were a woman?"

Luke: "But you're not."

A film that I wish I had seen during the summer but didn't get around to finally made it's debut on Netflix this month. Needless to say, I had to watch it and it was quite a delight. Think of two different worlds colliding and you've got this movie.

First of all, you've got the straight, masc presenting single father and mechanic Luke (Ben Hardy). He makes the mistake of going to a bathroom and ending up in an underground nightclub that would certainly take him out of his usual comfort zone as well as encountering a certain someone.

The someone in question being Gaysian Drag artist Aysha (Jason Patel). Luke's a bit smitten and has no problem kissing Aysha outside the club. Then when he realised that Aysha was a man, he had a bit of a freakout for himself. Self loathing gay storyline? Not entirely. 

This movie somewhat subverted that trope a tad by having Aysha hire him as her driver and the more time Luke and Aysha spent together, the more they bonded. Luke even introduced Aysha to his son, Jamie at one point in the movie and the latter warmed to Aysha.

Of course, there was the matter of physical attraction as well. It definitely took Luke a while to have sex with Aysha, even though his initial hang ups annoyed the latter. However, Luke as a character somewhat matured as the movie progressed while an acid attack from a rival named Karen (Ali Afzal) forced Aysha almost to retreat into themselves.

I was concerned that this movie was going to end on a gloomy note with Ayesha staying with their parents, only for Luke to get Aysha out of their shell. Overall, it did end on a rather positive note for both Luke and Aysha.

- Aysha's family definitely knew about his sexuality but chose to ignore it until Luke turned up at their house.

- Aysha's drag friends were funny, especially the one who revealed they were 30. The wig pulling between Aysha and Karen certainly had a camp quality to it.

- There's a nice subplot with Luke reconnecting (but not getting back together) with Jamie's mother. She's written as a sympathetic character, though unaware of his relationship with Aysha.

- Chronology: Present day London, though Luke was from Essex and Aysha from Manchester.

Unicorns certainly was an unflinching movie between two very different men from very different worlds. There's great performances from both Ben Hardy and Jason Patel in their respective roles and the ending definitely landed for me. I really enjoyed this one.

Rating: 8 out of 10