Netflix’s Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Pleasing Film

Remarkably Bright Creatures (2026) is an appealing film primarily due to an excellent script and equally strong performance by star Sally Field, who will be 80 later this year. The script, written by Olivia Newman and John Whittington, is adapted from a similar-titled 2022 novel by Shelby Van Pelt.

Although Field has had a distinguished career over many decades for her work in films, theater, and television, like many older performers her opportunities have lessened as she has aged. But a co-producer of the movie is her son, Peter Craig, and she was offered the main role of Tova Sullivan, a widow who works as a night janitor in a Washington (state) aquarium.

Besides Field, two other fine performers in Remarkably Bright Creatures are Lewis Pullman, who had a prominent role as Ann Lee’s brother in The Testament of Ann Lee (2025), and now appears as Cameron Cassmore (see below), and prominent Irish screen and stage actor Colm Meaney, who plays Ethan Mack, who runs a local grocery store. Another prominent presence—but a non-human one—is Marcellus the large octopus, who often (in the voice of Alfred Molina) comments on his own and his human caretakers’ behavior. (In that large octopuses do not live long, Marcellus’s desire to escape from the aquarium and die at sea is also woven into the plot. Also, his remarks will hopefully stimulate some thinking on our kinship with the non-human world that surrounds us.)

Tova’s personal story is that she has not only lost her husband, Will, to death, but also a son, Erik, who predeceased his father by many years due to a boating accident. Thus, she is not only a widow, but also without any living children. Now alone, she is thinking of moving from her fine house, with a beachfront view, to a senior community.

Her job—she’s a conscientious cleaner—at the aquarium seems to be her main focus, and she often talks to the octopus Marcellus as she cleans the glass behind which he appears. Although she is a member of a knitting club that she jokingly refers to as the knitwits, she is not fond of their preference for gossiping over knitting. One of them who wishes to talk a problem over with her states, “I really wish I could talk about this with you, but you are so busy trying not to be a burden to anyone, you've forgotten how to be a friend.” (Film quotes are taken from the filmscript.)

But her work is put to a temporary end when she tries to return Marcellus to his tank—he had gotten out—and she slips and hurts her foot. Fortunately for the aquarium, someone, Cameron Cassmor, looking for temporary work shows up in town with a van that has broken down, and he needs money to repair it. Thus, he becomes her temporary replacement.

But she cannot resist the temptation to visit the aquarium to ensure he is cleaning properly. And although he resents her bossiness at first, the two gradually bond. As the movie advances, the two of them become even closer, but so as not to act as a “spoiler,” I’ll not reveal too much.

Instead, I’ll provide a little more information on their backstories. Shortly before the boating accident that killed him while still in his late teens, Tova’s son, Erik, had a fight with her. She suspected that he had a secret girlfriend; they argued; and he went out in his sailboat the next day without making peace with each other. The memory of her son dying while probably still mad at her has haunted her ever since.

As for Cameron, he is a guitar-playing musician whose bandmates have other priorities, leading to the band’s breakup. He also hasn’t had much luck with his family situation—his mother recently died, and he has spent some fruitless hours trying to discover who his father is.

Without revealing how the film ends, I can simply state that it ends well, leaving us with thoughts about grieving, the “circle of life,” and humans’ relationship to other living creatures.