114 min
8.384
2026
USA
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.
Overview
Reviews
Zeus wrote:#Mymuvir3 #RemakablyBrightCreatures2026 #688
9/10 stars review ratings
#SallyField #LewisPullman #ColmMeaney #Marcellus (Octopus Voice)
One of those movie whether you really hate it or love it. In this case its more to the earlier I suppose.
Set up on an ordinary life of a lady ,, an aquarium keeper and yes the miracle starts from there. One of the great acting from Sally Field and thats not even an exaggeration.
Its a 9/10 stars review ratings from me and it is well deserve hwen the whole story form up.
badelf wrote:**7/10: Sally Field delivers a career-highlight performance that transcends the film's otherwise conventional craft, turning a potentially saccharine premise into something genuinely moving about loss, solitude, and second chances.**
The opening moments are a whimsy that feels pitched to a younger demographic. But give Olivia Newman's adaptation of Shelby Van Pelt's novel twenty minutes to settle into itself, and what emerges is something genuinely affecting: a meditation on aging, youth, loss, love, and the unlikely connections that allow us to forgive ourselves and each other.
Sally Field anchors the film with the kind of lived-in performance that reminds you why she's collected two Oscars and a lifetime of respect. She plays Tova, a widow still haunted by her son's disappearance decades earlier, who works night shifts at a small-town aquarium and finds solace in solitude. Field doesn't traffic in sentiment; she finds the specific rhythms of this particular grief, the way it's calcified over years into something that structures her life unconsciously. Watch her hands as she cleans the tanks, or the way she holds her body at a slight remove from the younger staff; this is an actress who understands that her craft is physical, not just emotional.
The film's central conceit is a voiced octopus named Marcellus who observes, judges, and ultimately helps orchestrate the narrative's resolution. Alfred Molina voices the cephalopod with dry wit and surprising pathos, and to Newman's credit, she doesn't oversell the device. The octopus is not magical surrealism here. He is a literary device, a witness who sees what the human characters cannot or will not.
Lewis Pullman does what he can with a character arc that's been rushed to fit the film format, never quite earning its emotional beats. The script, by Newman and John Whittington, brings him into Tova's orbit through a series of contrivances that feel precisely that: contrived. Yet Pullman finds grace notes in the margins, moments of depth the writing doesn't fully explore. He and Field have a late-film scene that transcends the material through the sheer commitment of two fine actors.
Whittington's screenplay deserves credit for balancing comedy and heartbreak without collapsing into bathos. There are genuine laughs here, many courtesy of Marcellus' observations, and the writing understands that loss and humor often coexist in real life. The movie's themes ultimately land with respect for the audience's intelligence.
But here's where the film stumbles: Newman, who showed real visual ambition with *Where the Crawdads Sing*, opts for safe. The cinematography is competent but uninspired, the kind of standard-issue Hollywood warmth that signals "Hallmark drama" without ever taking risks. The aquarium, the small town, and the cabin setting offer opportunities for visual poetry such as the play of light through and on water, the way glass separates and connects us, but the film rarely capitalizes on these possibilities. It looks good; it just isn't distinctive or creative.
This matters because the story itself traffics in the extraordinary: an octopus as moral agent, a decades-old mystery, the slow combustion of human connection across generational divides. The material is brave, but the execution is merely professional. You can feel Newman respecting the source material, honoring the performances, hitting her marks; and yet never quite trusting herself to make something audacious enough to match the narrative's ambitions.
Field, on the other hand, elevates everything around her. She always has. There's a moment late in the film where she learns something that re-contextualizes her entire adult life, and Field plays it not as revelation but as a kind of terrible relief, the way some truths arrive less as shock than as confirmation that the gods are on our side. It's masterclass work, the kind that makes you wish the film surrounding her was half as fearless.
Brent Marchant wrote:Recent research has indicated that the octopus is an unexpectedly intelligent creature. It’s surprising to many of us given the many significant differences between us and these beings. Considering our respective physical traits, living environments and other distinguishing qualities, we may well be tempted to think that we couldn’t possibly be on intellectual wavelengths comparable to one another. And there are unlikely to be many of us who feel any kind of affinity for one another, especially when it comes to inter-species communication. But don’t tell that to Tova Sullivan (Sally Field), a senior widow who works as a cleaning lady at the local aquarium where she’s best friends with the resident giant Pacific octopus, Marcellus (narrator for this story voiced by Alfred Molina). Tova has experienced her share of tragedies in life, events that have made her something of a recluse. She would like to start over, but she doesn’t quite know how, largely due to the long-suffering pain that holds her back. But that all changes when Marcellus intervenes in her life, returning a favor for help she once provided him. Because of an on-the-job accident, Tova is forced into taking a leave of absence from work. In the interim, her job is assumed by Cameron (Lewis Pullman), a thirty-something drifter newly arrived in town in need of earning some quick cash. But, given that Tova’s replacement has trouble settling into the new gig (and the fact that she can’t bring herself to stay away from her octopoid friend at the aquarium), she steps in as Cameron’s mentor to show him the ropes. Thus begins an unlikely friendship between the two in which they both help out one another in multiple ways. Cameron assists Tova in rejoining the world of the living, while Tova helps Cameron adjust to developments in his life that he didn’t see coming. And, through it all, Marcellus provides a running narrative offering his wry, snide, condescending observations about this two-legged species that he mostly just tolerates but begrudgingly acknowledges can also make for “remarkably bright creatures.” Writer-director Olivia Newman’s adaptation of the best-selling novel by Shelby Van Pelt explores the various heartwarming and heart-wrenching challenges its protagonists undergo in their lives and how to make the best of them. Much of it is more than a little bit predictable, occasionally sappy and sometimes silly but generally inoffensive, coming across as a better-than-average Hallmark Channel movie. Credit for this comes in large part from the picture’s superb casting, particularly Field’s Emmy Award-winning performance, as well as a fine supporting ensemble including Colm Meaney, Joan Chen, Kathy Baker and Beth Grant. The production’s cozy Pacific Northwest setting suits the story well, too, providing ample opportunity for gorgeous cinematography and a beautiful backdrop. However, despite these strengths, the narrative has a few too many story threads, some of which feel underdeveloped and others of which are so ancillary as to be almost irrelevant. Then there’s the role of the narrator, which, honestly, comes across more like a novelty plot device than an integral part of the narrative, despite his involvement in a few catalytic moments. In all, this combination of elements makes for a somewhat mixed bag in the end, which makes me wonder how this Netflix offering managed to snare the Emmy Award for outstanding made-for-TV movie (it’s good but not that good). Indeed, when it comes to films involving eight-legged beings, “Remarkably Bright Creatures” comes nowhere close to matching the excellent and insightful Oscar-winning documentary “My Octopus Teacher” (2020), and it isn’t likely to make it onto any of the year’s 10 Best lists. But this comedy-drama does qualify as modestly harmless feel-good entertainment, and there’s something to be said for that when there’s nothing else online worth streaming.
