Director: Olivia Newman
Writers: Olivia Newman, John Whittington, Shelby Van Pelt
Stars: Sally Field, Lewis Pullman, Colm Meaney
Synopsis: Through unlikely bonds formed during night shifts at a local aquarium, Tova, an elderly widow, learns of a life-changing discovery that may bring her joy and wonder once again.
Netflix’s adaptation of the bestselling novel Remarkably Bright Creatures is the kind of movie that likely never would have been made if not for the content streaming wars we find ourselves in today. And what I mean by that is a traditional studio would have to devote a remarkable amount of time, money, and creative effort to a project with limited commercial appeal.
There is a need to attract recognizable stars and established filmmakers to turn a hidden gem into something truly special and a genuine crowd-pleaser. Instead, the streaming giant places greater value on simply filling its library with recognizable faces and emotionally accessible storytelling designed to manipulate the audience to the heart’s content.
That’s what you have in Remarkably Bright Creatures. An affable, perfectly fine, yet middle-of-the-road experience that repeatedly wants to hit the genre’s most emotionally egregious zones in hopes of squeezing a few unearned tears from the audience. All of this is done in the hope that audiences will keep their subscriptions for just a few months longer.
The story follows an older woman with a haunted past, Tova (the great Sally Field), who works as a caretaker at a small-town aquarium in Sowell Bay, a picturesque slice of heaven in Washington. Tova is a widow with no family to speak of besides a close group of friends and an eclectic cast of residents in a town where everyone knows your name.
However, her life is about to be shaken up, for better or worse, when a young man some would call a rambling soul pulls into town in his van, not necessarily down by the river, with a smoking radiator and no money to fix it. That would be Cameron (Top Gun: Maverick’s Lewis Pullman), the lead singer of the band Moth Sausage, which has not played in months.
Cameron is searching for the biological father he has never met, hoping to collect 18 years of child support payments after being raised solely by his now-deceased mother, as Cameron tells Tova while helping her care for her beloved octopus, Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina, though Ving Rhames would have been a bit of inspired casting), after Tova suffers a nasty fall.
Of course, being a giant Pacific octopus, Marcellus has three hearts. In what some would call a novel storytelling cliché, he seems to lend two of them to Cameron and Tova as they bond through caring for him and begin mending their own broken souls. The result is something soulful, sometimes funny, but never quite moving enough to keep the audience truly engaged.
That has become the real commodity in the streaming era. The same is true with Remarkably Bright Creatures, as director Olivia Newman (Where the Crawdads Sing), finds the Netflix sweet spot, little artistry or originality, but content designed to keep viewers emotionally engaged as a way to trick you into thinking you’re getting your money’s worth
Sure, the film is pleasant enough. However, it leans heavily into a cliché that has existed since series like Northern Exposure, Picket Fences, and Twin Peaks were all the rage in the 1990s, with their eclectic small-town characters constantly mixing and matching. Yet the script, by Williams and John Whittington, waters down the source material like algorithmically engineered comfort food.
At least a bunch of small-town clichés and mysteries would have been fun, even appreciated. Instead, the trope of what almost feels like an Alec Baldwin-style narration inspired by The Royal Tenenbaums, complete with watered-down whimsy from Alfred Molina, becomes another tired storytelling tool. Frankly, Marcellus offers nothing meaningful to enhance the story.
So much so that you forget he is even there. The anthropomorphic narrative device, which is also an issue with the source material, ultimately renders the creature pointless when it should be anything but. The rest of the script simply goes through the motions, complete with predictable romantic subplots.
Sure, we want Lewis Pullman’s Cameron catching the eye of a local paddleboard owner (Sofia Black-D’Elia) to find love and meaning in his rudderless existence. And yes, we don’t have cold hearts, so let Sally Field’s Tova connect with a charming country store proprietor (Colm Meaney) to find some Autumnal romance.
However, Netflix’s adaptation of Remarkably Bright Creatures has a fatal flaw in that it never knows whether it wants to be a Hallmark Channel original or a quirky, offbeat independent comedy. Like its main characters, the filmmakers seem saddled with source material designed to be easily adapted into middle-of-the-road entertainment.
The result is a streaming experience that is tonally timid and far too creatively cautious for its own good.
You can stream Remarkably Bright Creatures exclusively on Netflix on May 8th!
