Remarkably Bright Creatures
★★★
There’s something quietly comforting about Remarkably Bright Creatures. It’s the kind of movie that knows exactly what emotional buttons it wants to press, but thankfully does so with more sincerity and craftsmanship than your average feel-good streaming drama.
We actually watched it on Mother’s Day night, which honestly feels like exactly when Netflix intended people to watch this thing. The film follows Tova Sullivan (Sally Field), an aging widow working the night shift as a janitor at a small-town aquarium in the Pacific Northwest, where she develops an unusual connection with a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus, voiced by Alfred Molina. Meanwhile, a drifting outsider played by Lewis Pullman arrives in town searching for answers about the father he never knew, and naturally, their lives begin to intertwine in ways both expected and unexpectedly heartfelt.
From the very beginning, you can immediately tell this movie came from a novel. Sometimes adaptations wear that literary DNA proudly. Other times, it can feel a little too precious. Here, the film opens with narration from the octopus itself, and I’ll admit, my initial reaction was a pretty strong eye roll. An octopus narrating a movie sounded like one of those ideas that works beautifully on the page but risks becoming unbearable onscreen.
Thankfully, the filmmakers show restraint.
After the opening, Marcellus becomes more of a gentle thread woven throughout the story rather than the constant centerpiece. There’s definitely a magical realism quality to how the octopus influences events and understands people, but somehow the movie earns it. What surprised me most is that while the octopus is absolutely the “hook” of the film, it’s not actually the reason the movie works. The real strength comes from the interconnected relationships and the way these lonely people slowly help pull each other forward.
And then there’s Sally Field, who is, well… Sally Field. She carries the film with exactly the warmth, sadness and grounded humanity the role requires. There’s never a moment where she feels like she’s “performing” sentimentality. She just embodies it naturally.
Pullman was also a pleasant surprise. After recently seeing him in Thunderbolts*, this role couldn’t be more different. And once you realize he’s Bill Pullman’s son, it honestly becomes distracting how much they resemble each other in certain expressions and mannerisms. He has this permanently uneasy energy about him — almost like he’s always slightly panicked — but oddly enough, it works for the character here. I don’t know if he’ll ever become a full-fledged traditional leading man, but he’s compelling in a way that keeps you watching.
What ultimately elevates the movie above a standard Hallmark-style tearjerker is the care put into its world and characters. The film does a wonderful job of weaving together the surrounding small-town community and emphasizing the value of intergenerational relationships. We spend so much time siloed into our own age groups and routines that we sometimes forget how much wisdom, healing and perspective can come from people in completely different stages of life.
That’s really what the movie is about underneath the octopus gimmick: people carrying each other through grief, regret and loneliness.
Now, to be clear, this isn’t some profoundly transformative masterpiece. It’s still very much a cozy crowd-pleaser. Some of its coincidences and revelations require you to just go with it emotionally rather than logically. But the movie approaches its material with enough honesty that it mostly earns those moments.
And while it didn’t completely wreck me emotionally, I absolutely understand why this movie is going to make a lot of people cry.
Honestly, by the time it ended, I immediately had the urge to text my mom and tell her, “You would love this movie.”
That may ultimately be the best review I can give it.
