Nothing blows up.
Nobody gets killed.
Nobody falls in love.
The world isn’t saved.
Evil isn’t vanquished.
It stars a woman who is the youngest member of 80 for Brady. She hasn’t been asked to carry a film in 40 years. The co-star is the mediocre son of a B-lister.
It is narrated by an octopus. The octopus -in this non-animated film- is the most sympathetic character in the film.
It is, hence, fair to say, Remarkably Bright Creatures doesn’t come equipped with a laundry list of reasons you gotta see this film. However, like the Shelby Van Pelt novel it is adapted from, this film is a delight and has a good chance of making my top-10 list for 2026.
In this non-stop, edge-of-your-seat action thriller, eighty-something custodian Tova Sullivan (Sally Field) cleans an aquarium after hours. In her leisure, she belongs to a group of octogenarians called the “Knitwits.” I know. I know. “Jim! Slow down! You can’t hit me with all that right off the bat!” Tova’s biggest problem is Marcellus, a wandering giant Pacific octopus. Marcellus isn’t long for this world and wants to spend his last days in the bay instead of an aquarium. Marcellus is quite clever. He escapes often, but his shelf life outside water isn’t great. If the door is closed, he’ll never make it to the bay in time.
Tova develops an understanding with the highly intelligent cephalopod. If this is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Seriously, Tova untangles the creature trapped in phone and computer cords after escaping one evening, and the two form a relationship based on hot, hot sex.
Do I have any readers? That was for you. Actually, nothing untowards goes on between these two (awwwww), but they do form a bond of sorts. This bond is strained when Tova slips while getting Marcellus back to his tank. She is replaced by Cameron (Lewis Pullman), who is only the Pacific Northwest to locate his birth father, completely unknown to him, but the now-orphaned twentysomething is given a clue by his late mother: a class ring that leads him to Sowell Bay High School (the Fightin’ Pequods). His would-be father is important and reclusive. Cameron has to take employment to survive until this possible payoff.
Yeah, nobody thinks this will work. Even Cameron must know on some level that his plan is stupid and unlikely to pay any dividends. But he hasn’t got any other plan, and that’s kinda why this book and this movie is 
so special. Tova is lost. Cameron is lost. Marcellus is lost. Is this a family? A weird hybrid man-sea Atlantis family of sorts? No. But maybe these three can figure out how to improve their lives together.
There is frustration in this tale: the octopus knows more than the humans, but cannot speak. Tova might be too old and set in her ways to teach anything of use to Cameron, and Cameron behaves always as the former front man for a terrible garage band, which he is.
Remarkably Bright Creatures is a low-hype, big-payoff film. No, there won’t be any “saving the world” or “vanquishing evil forever” here, but there might tears and a quiet satisfaction that you cannot get from walking in slo-mo while an explosion goes off in the background. Loved the book. Loved the film. Maybe you will as well.
An ancient aquarium cephalopod
Tries to escape constantly, which is odd
Because in the tank
He holds royal rank
And from within, our tentacled friend can play God
Rated PG-13, 111 Minutes
Director: Olivia Newman
Writer: Olivia Newman, John Whittington, Shelby Van Pelt
Genre: Movies for adults
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who don’t need an explosion, literal or metaphorical, to enjoy a picture
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The impatient
