Sally Field in Netflix Drama

So it seems a bit of a bummer, frankly, that Marcellus (Alfred Molina), the cephalopod narrating Netflix‘s adaptation of Shelby Van Pelt’s much-loved novel, is not given much more to do than fuss over the inner lives of two humans.

But I suppose it’s hard to blame him when the people in question are played by Sally Field and Lewis Pullman, two reliably endearing performers who are somehow even more winsome together. As a film about animals, Remarkably Bright Creatures is human-centric treacle. But as a film about people, its gentle sense of humor and depth of feeling are enough to sweep you away on a wave of emotion.

In the first of many overly blunt observations, Marcellus reflects on what he has in common with Tova (Field), the night janitor at a small New England aquarium and one of the few humans he deems tolerable. They both like the quiet of the night. They both hate wolf eels. Also, “We both dream of the bottom of the sea, and what we lost there.”

For Marcellus, that means his sense of home and freedom; he counts every day of his “captivity” like he’s a housecat in a meme. But the Olivia Newman-directed movie, and for some reason Marcellus, is far more interested in Tova’s pain. By the time we meet her, she’s been living alone in her (stunningly beautiful, it must be said) seaside cabin for years, both her husband and her son having died some time ago. Marcellus can sense her unhappiness, and after she rescues him one night from a tangle of computer cords, decides to repay the favor by fixing it.  

The solution literally drives into town. Cameron (Pullman) is another lost soul, a broke musician living out of a very old, very dirty camper. Upon meeting Cameron, Marcellus intuits that he carries the same kind of hurt Tova does. From then on, the octopus devotes his last days to trying to push the two together.

From a distance, or perhaps from the limited view of Marcellus’ handprint-smudged tank, the plot of Remarkably Bright Creatures is almost too tidy to be believed. An ankle injury pulls Tova out of work just as Cameron, who’s stuck in Soul Bay for the foreseeable future thanks to car troubles, happens to be looking for temp work. During job training, it emerges that Cameron is a child in search of an absent parent, while Tova is a parent missing a lost child.

The surrogate mother-son dynamic that develops between them — she scolds him to take his job seriously; he fixes stuff for her around the house — is as inevitable as the ebb and flow of the tides. And for good measure, any time the two threaten to drift apart, Marcellus is there to nudge them back together, often at great risk to himself. The CG used to create Marcellus (led by Chris Ritvo of Untold Studios) is impressively lifelike, giving him real heft and personality, and Molina’s performance of his inner musings on the failings and quirks of our species perfectly wry and amusing. But there’s no escaping the My Octopus Teacher-esque sense of anthropocentrism. For all Marcellus insists on his own superiority, he might as well be a cutesy dog in a rom-com.

And yet. For all of Remarkably Bright Creatures’ limitations and contrivances, the actual bond that forms between its two human souls feels sincere and organic. It comes down to the lead performers and the crackling chemistry between them, which Newman and John Whittington’s script helps build step by step over such offbeat adventures as an open-mic night in which Cameron shows off his musical chops, or a road trip that ends in a hilarious gun-waving confrontation.

Field is unsurprisingly fantastic as Tova, a woman who swaddles herself in solitude like it’s a ratty old cardigan she can’t bear to get rid of. A third-act monologue in which she cracks open her deepest wounds is a stunner; sniffles rang out across my entire theater. Pullman has his own magnetism, radiating sweetness from underneath Cameron’s dirtbag exterior. But here as in Apple’s Lessons in Chemistry or The Testament of Ann Lee or the upcoming Wishful Thinking, his most extraordinary gift is as a scene partner. Whether Cameron is listening intently to Tova or trying to tune her out, both stars are so attuned to their energy together that you cannot help but feel it under your own skin.

The world around them feels similarly warm, even if the actual environs are prone to clouds and fog and drizzle. Colm Meaney is a lovelorn store owner who approaches Tova like she’s a tiny beautiful bird he’s afraid of scaring off. Sofia Black-D’Elia makes such a fun and snappy impression as Cameron’s love interest Avery (“That feels like a you issue,” she retorts when Cameron expresses amazement that she owns her own paddleboard store despite being “like my age”) that I was only disappointed she didn’t get more screen time. The rest of the town is populated by busybodies, but well-meaning ones, ready to swoop in with advice before a date or aid in the investigation of a minor mystery.

Remarkably Bright Creatures might be approximately the 87th work I’ve seen this year about the charms of life in a small coastal town. But for anyone besides Marcellus, who insists to the end that all he wants is to return to his old home deep under the sea, it might also be the most seductive. It’s as cozy as an old woolen blanket, as sweet as a mug of hot chocolate and, ultimately, as moving as the sight of a sky turning purple over an endless horizon.