If you can get all worked up about a somewhat aggressive little bird that, to the annoyance of homeowner Melissa McCarthy, has decided to take up residence in a tree on her property, you’re welcome to The Starling, an astonishingly treacly film that’s meant to be inspirational but is something close to agony to sit through. Mawkish and reliant upon platitudes in the absence of genuine feeling and anything resembling filmmaking style, director Theodore Melfi’s first feature since the massively successful Hidden Figures in 2016 is a testament to banality that Netflix decided was worth $20 million to acquire. The Starling made its debut at the Toronto Film Festival and if something like this this is now considered worthy of a major festival slot, the world has changed. Can we blame Covid for this too?

Working in a stylistic vein that might be described as bumptious sentimentality, screenwriter Matt...