Netflix’s new comedy-drama The Starling has been hit with some brutal reviews since its release, but what happens in the movie’s ending and what is it supposed to mean? From director Theodore Melfi, The Starling is a comedy-drama starring Chris O’Dowd, Melissa McCarthy, and Kevin Kline. However, although the movie was released on Netflix, viewers expecting something akin to McCarthy's superhero spoof Thunder Force will be disappointed by The Starling.

Centering on a couple who endure the tragedy of losing a child in infancy, it’s fair to say The Starling is not a broad, laugh-out-loud comedy. The comedy-drama is more of a quirky, understated story about people and the way they affect each other’s lives, a fact that prompted some reviewers to call The Starling overwrought, emotionally manipulative, and tonally uneven. Critics have not been kind to The Starling since its release, and the movie’s ending may have a part to play in its less-than-solid reception.

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Comedy-drama is a tricky genre to get right, and The Starling’s story is saddled with one of the saddest subjects imaginable right from the beginning. The plot follows McCarthy’s Lily and O’Dowd’s Jack, a couple who are excited for the arrival of their child in the movie’s prologue. When the costly Netflix movie The Starling begins, a few years have passed offscreen and Jack is living in New Horizons, a facility for patients suffering from depression and suicidal ideation. Lily regularly visits him but things are tense between the pair and it’s clear that something has driven the couple apart. Soon, viewers learn that Lily and Jack’s daughter Katie died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), a real but rare condition that affects 35 in every 100,000 children according to the CDC. This left Jack unable to cope with daily life, resulting in him moving to New Horizons, while Lily has taken the opposite approach by pressing on with life and attempting to ignore her grief.

How Does Larry Fine Help Lily Cope?

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Unlike Jack, Melissa McCarthy’s character does not seek out professional treatment and instead devotes her attention to gardening. It is then that the movie’s titular menace begins besieging her, with the starling invading her garden and attacking Lily whenever she tries to tend to a small vegetable patch. Larry Fine, Kevin Kline’s psychiatrist-turned-veterinarian, helps Lily to deal with this invasive species and, as quirky characters in comedy-dramas are wont to do, teaches McCarthy’s obstinate character some life lessons in the process. He explains that Lily’s obsession with killing the starling has little to do with the bird itself, and much more to do with her inability to accept that she can’t control the outcome of life events by gardening. Unfortunately, some reviewers felt this heavy emotional theme of life after losing a child was better suited to darker genres like drama and horror, as seen in Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, rather than light-hearted comedy-drama.

Seeking counseling, psychotherapy, and family support are typically the avenues recommended to parents coping with SIDS in real life, and although Fine is now a vet, his willingness to perform surgery on the starling is less important than his ability to talk through Lily’s grief without her feeling like she is giving up control to a professional. However, Lily is not the only one unable to contend with everyday reality after losing a child, and Fine is not able to help Jack despite trying to reach out to O’Dowd’s depressed love interest. Jack’s improved condition comes from some soul searching, and a realization he makes about his past before the couple met.

How Does Jack’s Depression Improve?

The Starling Melissa McCarthy and Chris O'Dowd

During the end of The Starling, the character of Jack reveals that he suffered depression before the birth of their child and before the couple’s relationship even began. Realizing that his mental health struggles date back decades allows Jack to start treating his depression in earnest. Until this point, Jack has been quietly hiding his medication, unable to connect with Lily and Larry’s attempts to help, and generally trapped in a dead-end of overwhelming depression. Once Jack is honest about the root of his struggles he begins to open up, and when he concedes that he has effectively been hiding his condition from even his own wife, he’s able to reconnect with Lily. This is symbolized in The Starling’s ending by Jack opening a slew of care packages Lily brought him every time she visited, each containing his favorite candy. Jack’s depression being quickly alleviated didn’t ring true for many critics, though, and although earlier comedies like How I Met Your Mother addressed tough topics like miscarriage gracefully, some reviewers argued that The Starling’s ending failed to find the right tonal balance with the overnight improvement of Jack's condition.

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Do Jack and Lily Get Back Together?

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Despite the intense hardship that the pair face throughout The Starling, Jack and Lily do eventually get back together in the movie’s ending. In the last shots, the reunited couple don helmets to do some gardening together, aware that the eponymous threat will soon be attacking them. Sure enough, The Starling closes with not one, but two starlings descending from the sky to attack Jack and Lily, who do their best to tend to the vegetable patch despite the airborne interruption. This image shows that thanks to Larry helping Lily face her grief and Jack coming to terms with his history of depression, the couple have strengthened their bond despite their loss.

What Does The Starling Symbolize?

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Like McCarthy’s earlier comedy-drama Gilmore Girls, The Starling fuses heavy drama and silly comedy to create an unusual tonal balance. However, unlike that cult hit, The Starling also makes use of symbolism, and it’s not immediately obvious what the movie’s metaphorical images such as the titular bird are meant to represent. As noted by Larry in conversation with Lily, starlings are hardy birds that mate for life. As a result, the animal comes to represent both the struggles (both big and small) the assuage Jack and Lily throughout their lives, and also the couple themselves. The starling that Lily injures is a mother that used their dead daughter Katie’s sock as part of its nest, something that allows Lily to see the bird as a fellow parent rather than an annoyance.

The Starling, which released on Netflix in September 2021, also saw it’s ending feature Lily taking the bird to Larry's surgery, as the former accepts that challenges are an inevitability in life and should be embraced rather than shunned. The metaphor is a little muddled and the ending’s explanation is not entirely satisfactory, as it is unclear whether the pair of starlings attacking Jack and Lily represent the couple themselves (hardy, connected for life) or their struggles (persistent, but easily managed once they stick together). This unclear message is typical of the flawed movie, which doesn’t entirely cohere despite the best attempts of the ensemble cast.

What Is The Real Meaning of The Starling?

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The Starling is ultimately about the healing power of love and the ability of an effective partnership to unite people who have been dealt even the most brutally cruel hand by life. Lily and Jack can’t comprehend why they lost their infant daughter, but negatively-reviewed The Starling’s ending explains that the couple can get through the grieving process together and face life again even without finding a satisfying explanation or reason for the untimely tragedy. However, this means being honest with themselves, whether it is Lily admitting that she has tried to ignore and fast track her grief or Jack acknowledging that he struggled with depression before the loss of their child. Neither partner can survive without the other (like the titular bird), but they also can’t be together unless they are honest with themselves, making them stronger and more able to face the trials and tribulations of life (like dealing with the titular bird). Thus, The Starling is ultimately a story of love’s redemptive power in the face of unimaginable tragedy—a subject many critics felt made it more mawkish and maudlin than funny and uplifting.

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