The Starling is, if nothing else, earnest. It tries so very hard and I believe they mean well. But take that and a shiny nickel and you get a shiny nickel. This is not a very good movie.

The flick stars Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd as a married couple who lose their infant daughter. He winds up in a mental health facility while she grits her teeth and deals with her trauma at home and work. She tries to clean up the yard and plant a garden but a territorial (CGI) starling starts dive bombing her. So many metaphors.

I don’t think anybody is doing a bad job in this movie. They are just saddled with a script that’s trying way the hell too hard. There’s at least five metaphors actively working and the overall story just kind of repeats itself over and over again.

Melissa McCarthy does a fine job… but she’s mixing her dramatic chops (which are good) with pratfalls (which are less so). She proves again that she can be a good dramatic actor… but she’s saddled with so much maudlin drama that it gets old.

Chris O’Dowd weaponizes his resting hangdog face to good advantage. I believe he’s depressed and lost… mainly because he always looks depressed and maybe a little lost. It works for awhile… and then it just gets old.

The starling that harasses McCarthy is the flying, chirping personification (birdonification?) of metaphor. You kind of get what they are doing with the bird… and then it just gets old. It’s telling that McCarthy’s psychiatrist/veterinarian friend (played by Kevin Kline) basically spells out the metaphor and even McCarthy calls the script out for being too on the nose.

The final twenty minutes of this flick collapses short of the finish line and crawls sluggishly toward the end. I was worried my eyes would roll out of their sockets and that I’d forever cringe-sink into my recliner before this flick ended. It’s not good.

In many respects, I’d rather take this movie than McCarthy’s Thunder Force and Superintelligence. At least they are trying in this flick… trying and failing but at least its an effort. A maudlin, overwritten effort but at least an effort. I’d skip the movie regardless though.

Score: 68