A teenage girl running away from home is not unusual. It’s almost a given: crushed between home and high school, the obvious solution to problems is to get away, as far and as fast as you can. Hence, the hypnotic allure of boys with cars.
In I Believe in Unicorns, her debut feature film, Leah Meyerhoff tells a familiar story from an unusual perspective: this is not just a story about a girl, it’s a girl’s story, and there’s a difference. Opening with a montage of home movies, the vintage feel of memory takes us into Davina’s (Natalia Dyer) world; time measured by birthdays. Glowing candles, lushly decorated cupcakes, and a mom in a wheelchair.
Davina is caught between the adult responsibility of caring for her mother, and the fantasies of a little girl. The paraphernalia of whimsy adorns her life – tiny colored lights above her bed, ribbons fly on the handle bars of her bike. It’s all so pretty, but she looks so sad. Davina cannot escape the constraints of her life, with no father around, she has been her mother’s caretaker ever since she can remember. She surrounds herself with the visions of her imagination, and stop-motion animation takes the viewer there as the film’s narrative flows freely from reality to fantasy.
Natalia Dyer radiates an ethereal beauty and vulnerability in the role of Davina, as well as childlike shyness and boundless joy. Julia Garner (memorable in Jim Mickle’s We Are What We Are) provides a solid anchor and foil in the role of best friend Cassidy. When the two girls have a picnic in the park to celebrate Davina’s birthday, some guys show off their skating skills in the distance. One glance at the ironically named Sterling (Peter Vack) and Davina is lost, her attraction expressed in the diffident teen phrase: “I think he’s kinda cute.”
Is it love? Davina wants it to be love, and she has the daring not only to dream, but to pursue her dreams, heedless of the dangers. Venturing deep into Davina’s fantasies – lived and imagined, as the golden California landscape rolls by, I Believe in Unicorns captures the essence of that elusive mythical entity. It’s a movie that really lets you know what it feels like to be a sixteen year old girl.
I Believe in Unicorns is inspired in part by the filmmaker’s life experiences, and director Meyerhoff has cast her own mother Toni Meyerhoff as Davina’s mother. Home movies from Meyerhoff’s childhood were used in the opening sequence, introducing Davina’s back-story with poignant immediacy and vintage look. These choices and materials rescue the film from the hazards of cute, the juxtaposition of home-made vérité with the dreamy stop-motion fantasy sequences gives it all a necessary and effective edgy tension.
There is a fairy tale quality to the film, which merges archetypes of the folk-fairy tale. Davina is the beautiful princess in dire need of rescue, yet she is also the young adventurer/prince who sets off on a quest of identity. The strength of the film is that although she is as much enthralled by the fairy tale tropes as she is by the would-be-prince of her dreams, ultimately, Davina does create her own story, and she is the heroine.
JFF screening: Sunday, July 13th at 16:15.
I Believe in Unicorns (USA, 80 min, 2014, English with Hebrew subtitles)
Directed by Leah Meyerhoff; Cast: Natalia Dyer, Peter Vack, Julia Garner, Amy Seimetz, Toni Meyerhoff.
