This bird's not worth watching.

The dialogue lacks the saltiness that made St. Vincent work so well, and the many pauses in the action allow plenty of opportunity for mawkishness to seep in. While McCarthy is certainly the best thing in it, she does have her limits.

It just doesn't get the mix quite right -- you can get from there to here.

People might take away something from The Starling‘s exploration of grief and losing a loved one, but I didn’t. It was melodramatic and cliché in ways it didn’t need to be... The music was painfully jarring. Keep your expectations low for this one.