‘Unicorns’ is a glittering unlikely queer romance | review

Ben Hardy and Jason Patel star in Unicorns. Courtesy of TIFF.

TIFF 2023 | Unicorns follows a South Asian drag queen and Essex mechanic's sparkling will-they-won't-they romance of queer discovery and joy

Unicorns is a gorgeous glittering hidden gem. Full of queer life and spirit, it charmingly mines familiar tropes of queer repression and exploration to examine the unlikely relationship between a single dad and a drag queen. Ben Hardy and newcomer Jason Patel make an intoxicating pair that hold your attention with their electric chemistry from beginning to end.

Unicorns premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.

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Towards the end of Unicorns, writer-director James Krishna Floyd's directorial debut that premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, Ashiq (musician Jason Patel, also in his feature film debut) tells mechanic Luke (Ben Hardy) that “she wasn't real,” referring to his drag queen persona Aysha who we see him as for the majority of the movie. In response Luke says, “she was real to me.”

The main tension of Unicorn is between warring identities, not just between our protagonists but within them. Ashiq, when we first see him out of drag, rolls out his prayer mat and begins prayers like he wasn't just twirling for tips in a gay club an hour ago. Luke, the father to a young son, finds himself in crisis when he discovers his attraction for Aysha. It's that exploration of the fluidity of gender and sexuality that elevates Unicorns past its perhaps familiar tropes and themes. The beauty of the romance is it isn't necessarily one of sexuality discovery than it is a discovery that gender in matters of love doesn't matter.

The result is a gorgeous glittering gem that captures your attention from beginning to shimmering end.

Luke first meets Aysha when he stumbles down a dark corridor to a basement gay club where she is performing (more like slaying the house down boots mawmah) on stage mixing the electronic techno trappings found in any gay bar with traditional South Asian music and dance. The way Floyd, along with co-director Sally El Hosaini, captures Aysha is with mysticism. A spectacle you can't look away from. Even the way that Luke finds himself in the club feels like Alice tumbling down to Wonderland.

Sequined for the Gods and twirling for her tips, Luke is transfixed by her and she knows it. She strikes up a conversation before going in for a kiss that gets interrupted when Luke realizes that Aysha is a drag queen. The kiss sends him into a tailspin. But unlike other versions of this story, Luke never moves to full blown homophobia or violence. He holds back as if aware that deep down he liked it — and Aysha noticed it too.

Despite their not-so-meet-cute ending with hostility, Aysha seeks Luke out to drive him to gigs after her usual driver falls through. Not being able to turn down the cash — perhaps a glimmer of curiosity in Aysha — he accepts. What follows is an all-night romp that includes three more hilarious drag queens, a private mansion party and a broken nose following a brawl. And Luke comes back for more, becoming Aysha's regular driver and escort to gigs. They begin to form a close bond that hinges on their experience in boxes that they've found themselves in that spirals into an irresistible will-they-won't-they romance.

There's so much texture to Luke and Aysha. Unicorn takes some incredulous turns along the way that in a weaker movie may take you out of the story but the purely intoxicating screen presence of Patel and particularly Hardy, who nearly runs away with the movie, is enough to keep you engrossed. Patel, who's most at home as Aysha, eats every frame without saying a word — a rare star quality. Hardy, on the other hand, gives a physical performance communicating his internal struggle that he holds in his body. Both his resistance and attraction to Aysha could be felt through the screen in a way that feels raw and authentic.

Queer repression is a familiar theme. Movies like Brokeback Mountain, God's Own Country, and Moonlight all mine the too relatable experience of feeling your sexuality repressed in the name of “normalcy.” Unicorns doesn't quite reach the heights of those movies in the canon, but what it does is give us a dazzling invocation of the queer experience that is steeped mostly in joy rather than tragedy. To see drag queens read each other — “he didn't know I was a queen” / “was he blind?” — or gaysians communing is so rare but so uplifting. Throughout the movie, Luke physically sees more of Ashiq under Aysha — something that she is resistant to sharing. First it's a wig, then it's makeup, then it's seeing his bare chest. But with the physical unpacking, there is the emotional one. And that is a wonder to watch both actors perform. A sparkling wonder.

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Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.