Reuniting with “St. Vincent,” director Theodore Melfi, Melissa McCarthy, and Chris O’Dowd play a married couple on the rocks after the unexpected loss of their baby tears them apart. Calibrated as a crowd-pleaser like their previous collaboration, which had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival where it was runner-up for the audience award, “The Starling” is the kind of cloying, overly sentimental treacle that often gets labeled uplifting, but whose seams show like a mass-produced discount t-shirt. 

Continue reading ‘The Starling’: Melissa McCarthy & Chris O’Dowd Offer Emotional Range In A Cloying, Overly-Sentimental Movie [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.