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I didn’t grow up with The Last Unicorn, so this was actually an entirely fresh viewing experience for me. I knew nothing about it going in, and I was pleasantly surprised by it all. Not everything works, and some of it hampers or outright harms the overall vibrancy and coherence of the tone, but there’s enough good stuff here for me to understand the devotees of this cult classic.
It contains the classical structure of a “questing narrative” so baked into fantasy literature and fairy tales that it’s nearly impossible to think of a major property that doesn’t include some form of this. In fact, The Last Unicorn is best when it merely observes this quest in a quiet pace and we linger on the images and absorb the elegiac emotionality radiating from its main character.
Even better is the animation style that borrows from medieval tapestries, think Disney’s Sleeping Beauty but without the infinite resources of that studio. Parts of the final animation style are choppy or lacking, battles for instances, but there’s a twinkling, mellowing atmosphere throughout that is quite engaging. Simply watching the unicorn walk through this vibrant forest is enthralling for the pull it provides such angular beauty.
There’s also the case of the strong vocal cast, with Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury, Keenan Wynn, and Christopher Lee getting highest marks. Far from the motherly Mrs. Potts, Lansbury gives her witch a vaguely Scottish tone and a sharp, terse pronunciation style that’s quite aurally pleasing. While Wynn gets a pair of roles, both the rotund Captain Cully and the imprisoned harpy, and he manages to make both of them distinct and unique. While Lee brings his typical professionalism and wonderful elocution to King Haggard, and manages to make us both fear and pity this broken, unhappy man in a scene where he both threatens the unicorn and explains why he stole them all.
I haven’t forgotten about Mia Farrow, as she is indelible to making this film work in the central role of the unicorn. The Last Unicorn contains a melancholic core, and a general sense of plaintive longing and belonging throughout. Farrow’s voice doesn’t just blend into these aspects, but enriches them and makes them stronger. It’s impossible to imagine anyone else in the central role once you hear Farrow, and the ending is only stronger for the emotional reading she gives her final lines. Despite not being able to see her graceful, waif-like visage, you can feel it throughout and it’s a perfect merging of actor and material.
Yet for all of these strengths, The Last Unicorn has several things that kneecap it from being an underrated masterpiece. Chief among them is the god-awful songs by Jimmy Webb and America. The theme song is fine, and it works as it plays over the opening credits, but making the cast sing completely unmemorable songs bogs things down unnecessarily. The worst offender is a love song between Farrow and Jeff Bridges. Not every single animated film needed to be a musical, especially if strong or memorable material just wasn’t there to justify its inclusion.
There are also several brief moments of juvenile humor that standout from the more mature and rich tone of the rest of the film. I’m thinking of a butterfly singing anachronistic songs and making a series of rapid-fire jokes that recalls Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy blitzing through several animated films with the same shtick at various levels of success. The Last Unicorn is too mature for moments like this, and they made me roll my eyes and sigh in frustration when they would pop-up.
Still, I understand where the ardent defenders are coming from, and I won’t judge them for loving this. It is charming in many ways, and I admired how it placed a forlorn, poetic beauty and heavy dramatics over empty spectacle routinely. While The Last Unicorn is imperfect it is still a damn-fine way to spend rough 90 minutes.
