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Remarkably Bright Creatures has a talking octopus and a lot of heart

Sally Field hasn't lost her chops when it comes to making audiences sob.

By Tara Bennett  |  May 7, 2026 | 7:00pm
Photo: Netflix
Film Reviews Sally Field
Remarkably Bright Creatures has a talking octopus and a lot of heart

Not every bestselling novel should be made into a movie, because what works on the page doesn’t always translate to the screen. Take Shelby Van Pelt’s 2022 novel Remarkably Bright Creatures, which inherently has a high degree of page-to-screen difficulty simply because a primary point-of-view character is an acerbic, wordy, giant Pacific octopus. You screw up that cephalopod and your movie is dead in the water. This makes it extra impressive that director Olivia Newman’s Netflix adaptation of Remarkably Bright Creatures is a heartfelt character piece, featuring a cast that elevates the material and keeps the book’s potentially maudlin tentacles in check.

The adaptation doesn’t divert much from Van Pelt’s prose, which centers on 70-year-old widow Tova Sullivan (Sally Field). She lives alone in her large family home in the Pacific Northwest, and works the night shift cleaning the tiny local aquarium. Tova clearly prefers the quiet company of talking to her fishy friends, especially Marcellus, the aforementioned rescued octopus, who observes her from his tank. In turn, he shares with the audience, through the omniscient voice of Alfred Molina (Doctor Octopus himself), his imperious thoughts about the strange humans who tap at his glass and exhibit their myriad odd habits. 

A narrating octopus, you say? It’s been scientifically proven that octopuses are one of the most intelligent invertebrates, and they practice observational learning. But giving Van Pelt and the film an inch of facts means they’ve both run a mile, stretching the plausibility factor into the realms of sci-fi. In the book, it’s whimsical. In the film, Marcellus’ fine use of English initially conjures distracting logic questions. However, Newman makes the right call by only judiciously sprinkling Marcellus throughout the film as needed, which doesn’t further strain the already tenuous suspension of disbelief.

In fact, Newman and co-screenwriter John Whittington make a sage call in leaning more towards the humans of the piece. Around the always engaging Field, they’ve populated a small town full of charming character actors including gossipy grocer Ethan (Colm Meaney), deadpan paddleboard shop owner Avery (Sofia Black-D’Elia), and Tova’s circle of well-meaning friends she calls the Knit-Wits (Joan Chen, Kathy Baker, and Beth Grant). The cast comes together like the warm, fuzzy fibers of an Aran sweater, and you just want to hang with these people—which is really half the battle in a film like this.

Going on 30 years, at some point all these characters have attempted to get Tova to live beyond the tragedies of her life, including the death of her teenage son Erik and the more recent illness and death of her husband Will. But she’s stubbornly stuck inside her grief until a young man named Cameron (Lewis Pullman) rolls into town in an ancient camper van. When it dies, he has to stick around town to pay for repairs. A loner musician on a mission to heal some trauma of his own, Cameron ends up helping Tova on the night shift when she sprains her ankle. They get along like oil and water, as Cameron half-asses the work and Tova turns into a sputtering approximation of Mr. Miyagi, dispensing the “right way and the wrong way of doing things” in life. 

The pair’s natural chemistry breathes a lot of life into Remarkably Bright Creatures. In lesser actors’ hands, the film could have easily devolved into cloying melodrama. Instead, scene-by-scene, Field and Pullman build a believable relationship between these lonely souls, which forms the emotional spine of the film. No disrespect to the octopus, but the more Newman allows this ensemble of very fine actors to work their magic, the more that Remarkably Bright Creatures rises above the hokey, coincidence-ladened narrative that plagued the book. In particular, Field’s talent for earnestly wringing tears from the audience remains undiminished in this chapter of her career. She plays Tova with a crotchety charm that eventually reveals itself as heartbreaking grief and regret, and there are few who can sell that better than Field as Places In The Heart and Steel Magnolias will attest. 

But there is another great performance in the film to be commended: that of Marcellus, who exists through a mix of CGI and practical puppetry from Howard Berger and his KNB EFX Group. When Marcellus interacts with humans or escapes his tank out into the aquarium proper, you believe that’s a real octopus slinking around. Together with Molina’s narration, this would be a much lesser film without the combined effort to sell him as a credible character throughout.

Readers should also appreciate the strong ending here, as Newman and Whittington tinker with the novel’s climax for the better. It’s a tighter, more emotionally focused finale that reinforces the book’s messages of compassion, forgiveness, and second chances. While Remarkably Bright Creatures may repel those with little patience for stories of fate, those who enjoyed the book—or those who enjoy character pieces as catharsis—will find this a worthwhile adaptation. 

Director: Olivia Newman
Writers: Olivia Newman, John Whittington
Starring: Sally Field, Lewis Pullman, Colm Meaney, Joan Chen, Kathy Baker, Beth Grant, Alfred Molina
Release Date: May 8, 2026 (Netflix)

 
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