saccharine

First, good on Mazzulla to straight-up treat the kid as the reporter he clearly is, and answer the question directly, without pandering or turning it into some sort of saccharine after-school special.

Written by William Ivory and directed by Oliver Parker, it’s a simple story, simply told — sweet, but not saccharine, and moving even when you know what’s coming.

It began with the score’s hit, “A Simple Song,” Bernstein at his most tuneful, even saccharine.

In this occasionally saccharine yet blithely comical piece of rich-people-problems autofiction, Clooney is the funniest he’s been in years, taking shots at himself and the life he’s chosen with a marksman’s aim.

And though he’s undeniably quixotic, PTA’s relentless urgency consistently overrides the sticky trappings of saccharine sentimentality that would snare less ambitious filmmakers.