The Fantasy She Built to Survive
Davina doesn’t believe in fairytales. Not really. But when you’re seventeen, motherless in every way that matters, and burdened by the silent agony of caring for a disabled parent, fantasy becomes more than a game—it becomes survival. I Believe in Unicorns (2014) isn’t just a title; it’s a desperate whisper of a girl who clings to illusions while her body screams to be touched, held, devoured. This is not a story about magical creatures. It’s about how a young girl mistakes hunger for love, and how flesh, once tasted, can rot the dream from the inside out.
The Road Trip to Nowhere and the Eroticism of Escape
Davina meets Sterling. He’s older, reckless, dirty-blond and damaged—just like the fantasy boy who lives in every girl’s sexual awakening. When they run away together, it isn’t for freedom. It’s for immersion. In skin, in sweat, in hurt. Their sex isn’t romantic—it’s raw, wet with confusion, lit by desire that trembles on the edge of violence. Davina craves something sacred. Sterling offers something savage.
Every kiss cuts a little deeper. Every touch takes more than it gives. She wraps herself around him like ivy around a crumbling wall. And when the bruises bloom, she tells herself they’re flowers. Because leaving the fantasy would mean facing the emptiness she started with.
Unicorns Don’t Bleed
The title misleads gently, seductively. But unicorns don’t live here. Not in dirty motels. Not in the stolen car with worn-out seats. The unicorn is Davina’s fragile innocence, stabbed through with reality. Her animation sequences, dreamy and childlike, act as emotional orgasms—explosions of hope inside the darkness of a deteriorating relationship. The unicorn gallops while her heart collapses. A metaphor, yes. But also a warning: when you believe too hard in fantasy, you stop seeing the predator behind the prince.
When Coming of Age Tastes Like Ash
Leah Meyerhoff’s I Believe in Unicorns is a seductive trap disguised as an indie coming-of-age film. It’s not sweet. It’s not safe. It whispers to the part of us that remembers our first heartbreak, our first touch, the first time someone took from us more than we meant to give. It’s a film that strips back the glitter from girlhood and exposes the raw wound underneath.
In the end, Davina doesn’t find herself. She finds the wreckage of her illusions. And somewhere in that mess—between the blood, the silence, and the sting of fading kisses—she begins to understand that not all fantasies are worth believing in.
