TIFF 2021 film review: 'The Starling'
Melissa McCarthy plays a bereaved mother working through grief by trying to kill a bird in the ham-handed dramedy 'The Starling' (screening during the 46th Toronto International Film Festival).
In short: One year after married couple Lilly and Jack (Melissa McCarthy and Chris O'Dowd) tragically lose their infant daughter, Jack is in psychiatric care and Lilly seems to be living as "normal." One day, an aggressive starling builds a nest outside her home. Kevin Kline, Timothy Olyphant and Daveed Diggs also star.
The worst and least necessary part of this grief drama is the titular starling. Everything related to the clumsy metaphor of a defensive nesting bird protecting their nest is just awkward. At some point, some producer read this script and thought "well, we can't train a starling well enough to be a character." Then, somewhere down the line another producer read the script and said "... we can CGI this bird." That producer was dead wrong. The correct call would have been to hand the script back to writer Matt Harris and suggest tearing the screenplay down to the studs, totally rip out any and all heavy-handed bird references.
Comedy can absolutely be used in emotionally heavy content - but the bumbling attempts at comedy here are just off-putting. Apparently this script has been kicking around Hollywood producers since 2005 - as if the dated and lazy "My wife" Borat gag wasn't proof that this script is stale to the core. And the alleged "joke" where a character crafts a light switch cover where the toggle switch looks like an erect penis when the lights are turned on ... there's simply no universe where that joke is funny.
The parallel tracks of Lilly and Jack's emotional recovery of course all comes to a crescendo in an honest conversation - a phone call that begins with some needed honest ... then just spirals into some uninspired woefully terrible dialogue. One character unironically declares "Things are going to be said. Tears are going to be shed." 'The Starling' is totally unafraid to just hit the nail squarely on the head, without any attempt at subtext or nuance.
This film's only redeeming quality is bringing Kevin Kline in front of the camera. Boy it's great to see him again. He's the perfect balance of warm and firm as a former psychiatrist-turned-veterinarian who helps guide Lilly through the pain she's ignoring. His character has a hint of pathos - but his character (named Larry Fine - and yes Lilly regrettably makes an obvious Three Stooges reference in yet another lethargic attempt at humor) is just shoehorned into the story. It's unsurprising that a script this lazy would decide "of course vet helping Lilly with her bird problem is also an incredibly gifted psychiatrist."
Final verdict: The pain of child loss and overwhelming depression deserves better than this woefully unequipped, shmaltzy melodrama.
Score: 1.5/5
'The Starling' screens during TIFF 2021, opens in select theaters Sept. 17 and streams on Netflix starting Sept. 24. This drama is rated PG-13 for thematic material, some strong language, and suggestive material and has a running time of 103 minutes.
