THE LAST UNICORN
A film review by Shane R. Burridge
Copyright 1996 Shane R. Burridge
(1982) 94m.
Thoughtful animated fantasy may be too wordy for some children but should appeal to kids who read. It's a little slow at the start but worth sticking with. The last unicorn of the title (voiced by Mia Farrow) is searching for others of her kind. She believes the answer lies in a rundown castle near the sea. This is the standard `quest' material that most fantasy is made of, but in this case heroics and spectacle are secondary to drama, which may explain the presence of big names in the cast. Alan Arkin, Jeff Bridges (who would play an animated character of a different kind the same year in TRON), Christopher Lee, Tammy Grimes, Angela Lansbury, Keenan Wynn, and Robert Klein all voice characters that have a passing resemblance to their real selves. The animation, produced in Japan, isn't on a par with Disney, and the female characters have those irritating oversized eyes that are symptomatic of anime figures, but it holds up. Story has many original touches and deals with love, regret, myth versus reality, and it's major theme, the subjectivity of truth. Unlike most animated films, this one doesn't throw in slapstick or comedy relief (although Arkin has some light moments). Every character bears some form of loss - unconsciously they join the unicorn on quests of their own to look beyond illusion and archetype. Not all of them find what they're looking for. Film doesn't handle these ideas in an exclusively adult way (it still comes across as a children's cartoon), and makes pleasant family viewing. I can imagine it being watched at home by mothers and their daughters during school holidays. Peter S. Beagle adapted his own novel for the screen - he was also responsible for the difficult task of adapting THE LORD OF THE RINGS for Ralph Bakshi a few years earlier. Pop group America perform Jimmy Webb's songs and help add to the story's wistful mood. Directed by the team of Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr who had previously worked together for ten years producing animated features for television.
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