bathetic
effusively or insincerely emotional
cloying
overly sweet
It manages to be so emotionally poignant and real without ever sinking into
cloying or sappy.
Forbes (Jun 21, 2015)As
cloy evolved, one of its meanings involved being overfed with sweet things, which inspired the adjective
cloying. In The Arizona Republic, Bill Goodykoontz describes recent movie
A Dog’s Purpose as “…often cloying, absurdly melodramatic, and the premise exists largely as a tear-manufacturing device.” Emotional manipulation, anyone?
corny
dull and tiresome but with pretensions of significance
maudlin
effusively or insincerely emotional
The character’s pluck and mischief are nearly drowned in a bog of
maudlin mommy love, and his vows of vengeance dampen the spirit of fun.
New York Times (Oct 8, 2015)
mawkish
effusively or insincerely emotional
Some words take a long journey from their original sense—but not
mawkish. This word originally referred to things that make you, as George Carlin put it, engage in an involuntary protein spill. Fittingly, this word is related to
maggoty, surely one of the barfiest words in the history of this vomitorium of a world. From there,
mawkish broadened to subjects that were less horrifying but still disgusting. On Valentine’s Day, there’s mawkishness aplenty.
mushy
having the consistency of a soft or soggy mass
saccharine
overly sweet
This word for an artificial sweetener is pretty much perfect for artificial sentiment.
sentimental
marked by tender, romantic, or nostalgic emotion
syrupy
overly sweet
An unabashedly
syrupy tween-pop anthem about infatuation at first sight, the song was so sticky and ubiquitous that it transcended the term “hit.”
The New Yorker (Sep 24, 2015)Syrupy, since the 1800s, has been a word for language that’s too sweet and sticky. A syrupy love poem, if it doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, could inspire an obsessive need to wash your hands of such drippy drivel.
treacly
overly sweet
“I don’t want anything to appear
treacly in print, but I honestly fell in love with her the day I met her,” he said.
New York Times (Jun 10, 2016)Treacle was originally a type of medicine, back in the 1300s when Walgreens was just a guy in an alley named Walter Green. By the 1600s, the term evolved, referring to sweet, syrupy concoctions such as molasses, which made the figurative meaning of “sentimental twaddle or flattery” a natural.
trite
repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse
And ultimately, the “get happy” moral of the story, while
trite compared to something like “Inside Out,” is sufficiently sweet enough for its audience.
Washington Times (Nov 2, 2016)
viscid
having the sticky properties of an adhesive
This fight between the old and the new is at the
viscid, romantic heart of Chazelle’s gooey, seductive film.
Salon (Dec 14, 2016)This is a word for stickiness, whether literal or figurative.
drippy
effusively or insincerely emotional
If its payoff is predictably
drippy, the movie quickly regains its comic mojo with a credit-sequence parody of a ’90s Hollywood romance.
Washington Post
contrived
showing effects of planning or manipulation