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If you can get mad about a slightly aggressive little bird who, much to the chagrin of owner Melissa McCarthy, has decided to take up residence in a tree on her property, you’re welcome. Starling, a surprisingly melancholy film which wants to be inspiring but which is close to the agony. Mawkish and addicted to platitudes in the absence of genuine feeling and anything like cinematic flair, director Theodore Melfi’s first feature film since massive success Hidden numbers in 2016 testifies to the banality that Netflix decided to acquire for 20 million dollars. Starling debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and if something like this is now considered worthy of a major festival, the world has changed. Can we blame Covid for this too?
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Working in a stylistic vein that could best be described as hunchbacked sentimentality, screenwriter Matt Harris can practically be detected pushing emotional buttons behind a curtain much like a 21st century Wizard of Oz. It cannot be denied that choosing little starlings as the big bad guys in your story is a new choice; no crows them. But that’s about as far as the filmmakers’ imagination goes in this case, so the story of a dramatic side or emotional insight is lacking. Hasbro cartoons have more suspense.
Using a very wide brush and a cutesy musical background, Melfi tells the story of a middle-aged couple who recently lost a baby. McCarthy is 51 and oddly enough, the script never mentions whether or not his character, Lilly Maynard, has been trying to have a child for years or not, or only recently became motivated. Her slightly younger husband, Jack (Chris O’Dowd), an elementary school art teacher, only supports him. But we never have the slightest story about how long they’ve been together, whether they’ve been married before, or other basic details of questionable relevance.
The couple live in a very comfortable heirloom home in a small town in Northern California (their area code 510 is referenced) where Lilly works as a convenience store clerk. But she begins to lose hold. The couple’s main outings are group therapy sessions in a mental health facility. What bothers Lilly more than anything these days are the obnoxious starlings that have taken up residence on her property. The idea of the Big Laughs movie is to have one of the starlings poop on the plastic owl that Lilly bought for “protection.” When one really dies, she buries him with the accompaniment of sap music and an aerial shot from God’s perspective.
Sounds exciting so far? Well, wait. In addition to now putting on a football helmet every time she dares to go outside, Lilly decides she needs to consult a shrink about the bird invasion (where’s Hitchcock when we need him?) And calls in. to a therapist, Dr. Larry Fine (Kevin Kline). There is momentary hope that a quick-witted stranger could cut through the molasses and bs surrounding the invasive starlings issue. We dare to take one more step by imagining that the good doctor is going to bring these drab and drab characters out of their egocentric stupor and take back their lives in hand. But, no, he spoils them, even joins them in their sweet, stupid, cliché-embracing approach to life.
Still grappling with those pesky little starlings, klutzy Lilly one day picks up a rock, hits a flying bird head-on and presents evidence to the good doctor. The great suspense of the third act hinges on being able to save the injured winged man, which, in a relativistic way, will suggest if this ramshackle couple might find their way back to a productive life as well. What symbolism. And oh, the suspense!
Starling exists in a fairytale world where ignorance is benign, patience is endless, and people have nothing better to do than obsess over harmless creatures who share a piece of the same universe. The director states everything in bold capital letters and then underlines it. You’ve never been back for two hours. There must be better ways to recover from a loss than the ones presented here.
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