New movies to stream this week

Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd play Lilly and Jack, a couple struggling to regain their emotional footing after the death of a child in “The Starling” - a mildly mawkish melodrama whose title refer to the injured bird that somehow facilitates emotional healing. It’s a premise that is oddly similar to “Penguin Bloom” (also on Netflix), about a woman (Naomi Watts), paralyzed after an accident, who overcomes her own depression by caring for an abandoned magpie. Unlike that fact-based film, however, “The Starling” never really rises above the treacly, somewhat cliched handling of the couple’s difficulties. Jack checks himself into a residential treatment facility, seemingly indefinitely, but he doesn’t act like he takes therapy very seriously (for reasons that come to light only later). Lilly’s path out of her pain is less self-indulgent: She throws herself into work at a grocery store, redoing the house and chatting with a kindly psychiatrist-turned-veterinarian (!), played by a nicely nuanced Kevin Kline. There are moments of recognizable anguish along with some modest insights on grief and healing - and it’s really nice to see McCarthy in a low-key role that doesn’t require mugging. But although the bird in the title gets better, this “Starling” never really takes off. PG-13. Available on Netflix. Contains mature thematic elements, some strong language and suggestive material. 104 minutes.

- - ALSO STREAMING: Loosely based on a 1999 novel by Bainbridge Island, Wash., writer David Guterson, “East of the Mountains” stars Seattle native Tom Skerritt as a surgeon with terminal cancer who decides to make his way to his boyhood home in Eastern Washington, where he intends to kill himself. “Under the direction of S.J. Chiro, Skerritt invests his character with a profound, quiet melancholy,” according to the Seattle Times. “Silver-haired and very soft-spoken, the Seattlebased actor brings great dignity to the part.” Unrated. Available on demand. 93 minutes.

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