Movie Time: Remarkably Bright Creatures

What drives me to watch a particular movie?

Any number of factors may pique my interest such as the plot, the themes of the movie, the genre or a specific actor.

Or in the case of today's film:

The octopus.

It's...Movie Time! 

Last Saturday, Andrea and I decided to take in a recent release called Remarkably Bright Creatures.  Based on a book of the same name from 2022, the movie star Sally Field and Lewis Pullman as well as Alfred Molina...

As the octopus. 

Marcellus is an octopus who resides in an aquarium in Sowell Bay, Washington.

Add the word "relunctantly" in front of "resides".  

In the opening narration, Marcellus bemoans his fate, counting down his days in captivity, forced to live next to fish he does't like and barely tolerating the noisy children who bedevil him through the glass.  

Of all the inferior humans he is forced to put up with, he supposes he minds the cleaning lady the least. 

Tova Sullivan is an elderly widow who works as a night janitor at the aquarium.  Tova is a misanthrope of sorts, preferring solitude and quiet to noisy bothersome people. 

She never recovered from the loss of her son Erik from years before and the recent death of her husband has made her even more withdrawn from people.

Tova does talk to Marcellus.

One night while Tova saves Marcellus from an escape attempt gone awry, she injures her ankle and needs to take time off. Someone will need to fill in for her as the night janitor.

Which brings Cameron Cassmore into the story.

Cameron arrived in Sowell Bay the day before in a rattling rust bucket of a van that has decided this picturesque community on the Pacific Coast is a lovely place for an old van to die.

The van and all it's debris is all Cameron has left of his mother who recently died.  He's on a quest back to her home town to find the father he didn't know he had.  

Cameron also doesn't have the money to fix the van so he needs a job.

Luckily the aquarium needs a night janitor.

Although she's supposed to be staying off her foot, Tova goes to the aquarium at night to check on Marcellus.  

Cameron is freaked out when Marcellus makes a new escape attempt.  Tova helps Cameron return the octopus to his tank and begins mentoring him on how to do the frickin' job of night janitor.  

Marcellus recognizes that both Tova and Cameron are broken people and thinks he can help them. In the time he has left.

Marcellus is dying and wants to die in the ocean he came from.

I am not going to begin to summarize what happens next as the lives of these two people continue to intersect with each other and with Marcellus as they fumble their way to something resembling recovery from their respective losses.   

There's a lot of sweet moments as the pair bond. Tova actually goes out among people to support Cameron at a local tavern's open mike night where Cameron sings and plays guitar. 

There's a funny bit where Tova uses Cameron's phone as a PHONE to CALL a prospective girlfriend to set him up on a date. Young people and their texting, am I right?

Cameron and Tova form a near familial relationship that takes a turn to the very real.  It's a plot twist that is rather contrived but damn, by the time it lands, both this young man and this elderly lady have earned their closure.  

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department 

Lewis Pullman as Cameron Cassmore was in  Thunderbolts* as Robert "Bob" Reynolds AKA The Sentry. Man, it is weird how much Lewis looks like his dad, Bill Pullman.    

Look, Miles O'Brien from Star Trek has gotten old. When did that happen? Colm Meaney is Ethan Mack, the proprietor of a Shop-Way grocery store in Sowell Bay. Colm's Ethan is such a chill, affable soul and threatens to steal a movie that has Oscar winner Sally Field (and an octupus) in it.

A word about Sally Field. It's disconcerting to see her playing an elderly woman but she clearly still has the spark she had in such films as Steel Magnolias, Soapdish, Mrs. Doubtfire and Smokey & the Bandit. Her performance as Tova is simply wonderful, navigating humor and tragedy, joy and sadness.  

I hope this movie is remembered at the end of the year when awards season rolls around because Sally Field deserves be recongnized for her work in as Tova Sullivan.

And we can't forget the octupus.  Aldred Molina's performance as the voice of Marcellus is remarkable. Molina conveys Marcellus' smug sense of superiority as well as the growing depth of his fascination and concern for the cleaning lady and her new friend.   

I suppose Remarkably Bright Creatures can be said to tell a story we've seen hundreds of times before.  Two vastly different people who are actually not that different, both broken, both discovering in each other the means to some form of healing.  

But this well-worn tale is well told with great performances and a very unique perspective, that of the octopus.  

Marcellus concludes the film and his narration with this observation:  "Humans, for the most part, are dull and blundering, but occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures." 

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Here's some bonus octopus content as Neil DegrasseTyson provides the low down on tne almost alien like sea critter.

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From aliens under the sea to aliens in outer space.

More Movie Time with some new stuff from the Star Wars universe!