Will Grab You and Stick With You

Remarkably Bright Creatures is a nice version of a movie that doesn’t exist much anymore. Directed by Olivia Newman and written by Newman and John Whittington, based on the Shelby Van Pelt novel of the same name, it’s the kind of sincere, heartfelt drama you’d see every few weeks in the 80s or 90s. It’s low frills, high-concept simplicity.

Tova Sullivan (Sally Field) cleans the small-town aquarium at night. There, she talks to Marcellus (Alfred Molina), the highly intelligent octopus who narrates the film. Until Cameron Cassmore (Lewis Pullman), a sad sack and absolute grump, gets stuck in town while looking for somebody who owes him money.

Tova is full of pithy quotes and a lot of pent-up rage over the life she’s missed. She’s a somewhat recent widow whose son, Erik, died when he was young. She’s distanced herself from her friends (Joan Chen, Kathy Baker, and Beth Grant) and is living in a big, gorgeous house by herself. There, she receives regular phone calls from a senior living facility her late husband had nearly set them up to move into. 

Remarkably Bright Creatures turns hardly likable characters into absolute darlings.

Meanwhile, Cameron is stuck in the small coastal town without the money to fix the van he inherited from his late mother. He’s a grump and a half when we first meet him, angry with everyone and quite bad at expressing himself. Ethan (Colm Meaney), the owner of the town store, sets Cameron up with a temp job filling in for Tova at the aquarium after she injured herself there. It’s when these two sad, lonely people collide that both of their worlds slowly change.

One of Remarkably Bright Creatures’ greatest powers is turning two hardly likable characters into absolute darlings by the end. They really are both hard to handle at first. They yell at each other and everyone else quite a lot. It’s easy to see why folks might dismiss them.

But there’s also the movie magic of a small town. There’s an ever-present sense that people care for one another here, even if they also talk behind their backs. The blend of real character with this fantasy sentimentality puts you at ease while the story rolls along.

It’s refreshing for romance to be a sideplot.

Of course, it’s romance as well as friendship that eases Tova and Cameron alike. But it’s not that other people suddenly cure them of their pains. Rather, it’s learning to see each other’s and their romantic partners’ pains that help Tova and Cameron grow.

It’s a refreshing approach to romance, even if it should be obvious. The romances are minor subplots, not the driving factor in their lives. Remarkably Bright Creatures is always focused on its two main characters and what they are learning to see with new eyes.

Which is why the narration framing doesn’t fully work. Remarkably Bright Creatures opens with Marcellus and repeatedly returns to his point of view. His narration intellectualizes the whole experience in far too many words, often detracting from the emotion of the moment.

When Remarkably Bright Creatures is in its stride, the movie sings.

In novel form, perhaps the narrative style makes more sense, because a book is already told from an outside perspective. But in the movie, it’s hard to care much for what Marcellus thinks about Tova and Cameron, despite regular attempts to frame him as their caretaker, rather than vice-versa. The CGI is also a bit distracting in some scenes.

It’s not as well-blended as that of some other contemporary CGI creatures. If the narration had been removed and the octopus-eye-view had still been used, perhaps it would have been less distracting to the more impactful parts of the movie. Alfred Molina goes uncredited in the film as it is, perhaps as a marketing ploy over the cheekiness of casting Doctor Octopus as a highly intelligent octopus.

When Remarkably Bright Creatures is in its stride, though, especially in the latter parts of the film, and once secrets are being revealed and Cameron and Tova are more fleshed out as characters, the movie sings. It does a swell job of demonstrating the power of apologies, or that it’s never too late to start living. But it never feels like it’s moralizing at you, or hitting you over the head with these messages. Instead, it’s just a lovely time spent in an idyllic oceanside town.

The setting is almost not used enough. There are a few shots here and there of waterfront moments or local establishments. But the dearth of outdoor shots in this gorgeous environment belies the all-too-common reality that films don’t shoot on location enough anymore. An older entry in this genre would have spent at least twice as much time outside, showing us the iconography of the Pacific Northwest.

One of the few major outdoor scenes is also slightly awkward. Cameron’s romantic interest, Avery (Sofia Black D’Elia), takes Cameron paddling after a charming date setup orchestrated by Tova. The scene is pretty, and the character is well set up earlier in the movie, but the chemistry between the two actors doesn’t fully read as they float on the water. Fortunately, all the romantic sideplots feel satisfying by the end of the movie, even if the dates we see don’t seem to have much spark.

And more fortunately, one of the other major outdoor scenes, shot at night, is actually visible, unlike those in most streaming movies of late. Let alone that the downpour of rain and Sally Field’s acting in it create some of the movie’s best moments, visually and dramatically.

Remarkably Bright Creatures is a touching journey between two unlikely people (and their octopus friend), finding their way in a world that has been hard on them. Its shortcomings aside, it ends in the perfect place with an uncommonly satisfying journey to get there. Its only shame is not having been released in theaters to enjoy amidst the kind of community the film embodies.

Remarkably Bright Creatures is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix.