Festival Predictions

2021 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Theodore Melfi’s The Starling

Published on November 24, 2020

Production on Theodore Melfi‘s fourth feature film begin in August of 2019 and he appears to be moving towards more dramatic terrain this time out. So far his filmography includes Winding Roads (1999), his celebrated sophomore feature in 2014’s St. Vincent (read review) and more recently, Hidden Figures (2016). With The Starling, we find Melissa McCarthy, Chris O’Dowd, Kevin Kline, Timothy Olyphant and Daveed Diggs. Netflix boarded the project was in post. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher would have worked on this project right after his work in Joker.

Gist: Written by Matt Harris, this is about a married couple suffers a hardship, leading Jack (O’Dowd) to head off to deal with his grief while Lilly (McCarthy) remains in the “real” world, dealing with her own guilt. As if Lilly’s troubles weren’t bad enough, a starling bird that has nested in her backyard begins to harass and attack her and she becomes comically obsessed with killing it. Lilly eventually finds guidance from Larry, a quirky psychologist-turned-veterinarian with a troubled past of his own.

Production Co./Producers: Theodore Melfi, Kimberly Quinn, Dylan Sellers

Prediction: PREMIERES

U.S. Distributor: Netflix.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).