Film Review: "The Starling" (2021).

"Hope. Starts. Small." This is The Starling. This comedy-drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Matt Harris. After Lilly suffers a loss, a combative Starling takes nest beside her quiet home. The feisty bird taunts and attacks the grief-stricken Lilly. On her journey to expel the Starling, she rediscovers her will to live and capacity for love.

Harris' script was featured on the 2005 "Black List" of most-liked unproduced screenplays. The script originally had the main roles reversed. The main character was the husband, who stayed at the house and battled the starling, while the wife was the one who left. In March 2017, it was reported that Dome Karukoski was attached to direct the film, with Keanu Reeves and Isla Fisher in negotiations to star. In June 2019, it was announced that Melissa McCarthy and Chris O'Dowd would star in the film, with Melfi hired to direct. By early August, Kevin Kline, Kimberly Quinn, Timothy Olyphant, Daveed Diggs, Rosalind Chao, Laura Harrier, Emily Tremaine, Elisabeth Rohm, Veronica Falcón, Edi Patterson, Dan Bakkedahl and Don McManus rounded out the film's cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in late September. Filming took place in New York City.

The film stars McCarthy, O'Dowd, Kline, Quinn, Olyphant, Diggs, Chao, Harrier, Tremaine, Rohm, Falcón, Patterson, Bakkedahl and McManus. Somehow McCarthy makes the film work. It's not exactly in the comedic actress' wheelhouse, full of melodramatic dialogue, with a tiny hint of a comedic element that humanises Lilly. She gives it her all, which is always worth seeing, but everything about the production seems to have been designed with one goal in mind: to snag its star an Academy Award.

The film should serve as a nice calling card for Melfi, and fans of McCarthy should be pleased as it's one of her most interesting lead performances in quite some time. The film will likely satisfy on the actress' strength, but McCarthy -- and her audience -- deserve better than focus-grouped pablum. The characters have rather cardboard characterisation and are too melodramatic, the acting is competent, and the story is rather boring as it is simple. There's only so much fun to be had watching McCarthy blatantly at odds with a movie so clearly intent on sentimentalising audience affection for him. It will appeal to people who like their melodrama repackaged with faux cynicism in a bid to reach those that wouldn't have touched the story had it been told straight; that is, without McCarthy's cultural cachet. One of the main problems of the film is that it builds the drama in a very naive, very artificial, very intentional way. The film is almost all preaching with very little film to speak of, and what movie is there is so broad that much of the message falls flat. The film is not a must-see by any means, unless you're a die-hard Bill Murray fan who has to see everything he's in.

Simon says The Starling receives:

Also, see my review for Hidden Figures.