Remarkably Bright Creatures

** out of ****

2026, 111 mins. PG-13

Directed by Olivia Newman

Screenplay by Olivia Newman and John Whittington. Based on the Novel by Shelby Van Pelt

Produce by Bryan Unkeless, Peter Craig, and David Levine.

Cast: Sally Field, Lewis Pullman, Joan Chen, Kathy Baker, Beth Grant, Sofia Black-D’Elia, Colm Meany, Alfred Molina

This sort of thing happens often enough, when a Bestseller is adapted for the screen and ends up being subpar to the book. Usually it’s the result of the moviemakers making changes to the source material that are done to make the material more economical from a production and viewer’s perspective. Sometimes the changes work. Other times the result is lazy and hackneyed as is the case with “Remarkably Bright Creatures”.

Tova Sullivan (Sally Field) is an elderly widow living in the seaside town of Sowell Bay, WA where she works as a nighttime cleaner at the local aquarium. She shares a deepening connection with the Giant Pacific Octopus named Marcellus who uses his superior intelligence to bring them closer together and closely observe the various humans who pass by his tank. Marcellus’ narration is voiced by Alfred Molina who inspires a calming effect over the story in the relatively few moments in which he speaks. Tova is detached from daily life, which includes local gossip with her friends called the Knit Wits, and haunted by the death of her son Erik from decades earlier under mysterious circumstances.

Cameron Cassmore (Lewis Pullman) is a wayward drifter who arrives in town following the death of his long-estranged mother who died of a drug overdose. He’s living out of his mother’s van and looking for a job to get him by so he can make a trip to find a real estate broker who may be his father. Cameron gets a job as a cleaner at the aquarium after Tova injures her ankle. She ends up back at work pretty quick considering she’s wearing a cast and movement has to be limited. Together they go through the nightly routine and continue bonding over closer to Marcellus who notices a peculiar resemblances and shared traits between the two.

One of the things that makes the film adaptation so lazy is that the characters don’t really change or grow that much. Cameron in particular suffers because he constantly depends on others to solve his problems instead of resorting to his natural abilities like he does in the novel. When he’s about to get a parking ticket, no problem, because Tova will be right there to cover for him. Trouble with Marcellus escaping from his tank, Tova will help him make things right. Cameron is dependent, not intelligent.

Other supporting characters are also underdeveloped like Ethan (Colm Meaney) who owns the grocery store and provides Cameron with a driveway to park his van on. He shares a closer connection to both Tova and Cameron in the novel. There’s Avery (Sofia Black-D’Elia) who runs the local surf shop and has a connection with Cameron that nothing is done with. Tova’s group, the Knit Wits, are barely in it. All of these characters are reduced to having just a few perfunctory scenes throughout the movie and nothing is done with them.

I got another question about Cameron, why choose to sleep in the van that your mother died in? And how did he inherit the van if he hadn’t seen her in years?

The performance by Field is very engaging and she shares good chemistry with Pullman and the unusual special effects screen partner of the Octopus. The way they play off each other is so good that you wonder if they thought they were playing a better script. They definitely deserved a better movie than this one.