Our take
On paper, a grieving widow solving a mystery with the help of a giant Pacific octopus sounds like the kind of thing that should be unbearable. It isn’t. Remarkably Bright Creatures is a genuinely lovely piece of work, and most of that is Sally Field, who plays Tova, a woman cleaning floors at a Puget Sound aquarium at night because the alternative is sitting alone with the disappearance of her son thirty years ago. Marcellus the octopus knows what happened. Watching the two of them figure each other out is where the film earns its tears honestly, not cheaply.
It could have coasted on whimsy. Instead it’s really about the specific loneliness of outliving the people who knew you. A wholesome film that respects your intelligence is rarer than it should be, and this is one.
The story
Tova Sullivan, a grieving widow who cleans a Puget Sound aquarium at night, forms an unlikely bond with Marcellus, a remarkably perceptive giant Pacific octopus who helps her uncover the truth about the son who vanished decades earlier. Based on Shelby Van Pelt's bestseller; stars Sally Field.
