PG-13 | 1h 51m | Drama, Comedy, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance | 2026
As one of the minority of critics who loved director Olivia Newman’s “Where the Crawdads Sing” (“Crawdads”), I was strongly looking forward to her follow-up, “Remarkably Bright Creatures” (“Creatures”).
I’m happy to report that all of my high expectations were met and exceeded. With one-third of 2026 in the rearview, it is my favorite movie of the year thus far.
Creatures and Crawdads
Based on the 2022 debut bestseller by Shelby Van Pelt, “Creatures” not surprisingly shares some DNA with “Crawdads.” Both were written by young women with only one credited work of fiction each. The female leads in both stories are loners not so much by choice but rather resigned default.
Their collective pasts are dominated by a seemingly unshakable trauma, and anyone trying to get to know them better will be met with indifference or outright dismissal. Both are far more comfortable in nature and the company of the animal kingdom than they are with humans.
In one of the most fully realized and organic performances of her illustrious career, Sally Field stars as Tova, a septuagenarian widow living near Puget Sound in Washington state. She doesn’t have to work, but chooses to work part-time as a night shift janitor at the local aquarium.
Tova’s closest relationship isn’t with her three busybody friends, Janice (Joan Chen), Mary Ann Minetti (Kathy Baker), and Barb Vanderhoof (Beth Grant), or the owner of the general store (Colm Meaney as Ethan). Her only true daily “engagement” is with Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina), a Pacific octopus living in one of the oversized tanks she cleans.
Lovable Curmudgeon
Erudite with a clipped British accent suggesting more than a whiff of puffy, moral superiority, Marcellus is perplexed at the odd behavior displayed by humans (particularly children) and their “incessant jabbering.” Of all humans, Marcellus says he dislikes Tova the least. He’s not particularly fond of niceties or fawning adoration. He’s a curmudgeon who nonetheless grows on us.
The humdrum day-to-day of the sleepy hamlet gets a mild jolt with the arrival of Cameron (Lewis Pullman), a wannabe rocker who lives in the dilapidated van left to him by his recently deceased hippy-chick mother. Cameron is in town to find his deadbeat dad who abandoned him as a child and collect on past-due child support.
Flat broke and directionless, Cameron does occasional handyman jobs for Ethan and is soon hired by the aquarium owner after Tova sustains an injury.
Holes in Their Hearts
To say that Tova and Cameron don’t initially get along would be an understatement. She likes what she does. He does the same thing because he has to and finds it beneath him. When the conversation grows deeper, they recognize themselves in the other. Both have huge holes in their hearts. He has no parents, and she lost her only son decades earlier to circumstances not fully revealed until well into the third act.
Newman and her cowriter, John Whittington, clearly aren’t in a rush and regularly take timeouts in order to let the narrative regroup. One example is when a reluctant Cameron sings a stripped-down acoustic version of the Radiohead song “I Can’t” to a visibly moved Tova during an open-mic night at the local watering hole.
The lives of both leads take noticeable upswings when romantic subplots are introduced. For Tova, it is Ethan, the guy who had been able to keep his forever crush on her (mostly) a secret. Cameron’s path is harder earned.
The Meet Cute
He has a meet-cute with Avery (Sofia Black-D’Elia), the proprietor of a paddle boarding shop, but his fumble mouth torpedoes his initial salvo. During a hilarious road-trip scene, Tova conducts a “wrong number” phone intervention that gets the ball rolling.
Having not read Van Pelt’s book, and only after watching the movie, I wanted to see how the two might have differed. Without my giving anything away, the main story points and plot twists remain intact. But some secondary characters were eliminated, altered, or made into composites.
Over the next three months, theaters and streaming services will be inundated with typical mindless summer fare—very little of it original, interesting, or life-affirming.
We’ll get a sloppy serving or two of superhero bombast, or an alien invasion action adventure or three, some bad-taste blue romantic “comedies,” plenty of disturbing dread, the 938th riff on “Star Wars,” and a handful of forgettable animated sequels.
There will almost certainly be a handful of recommendable offerings sprinkled throughout, but none likely to reach the same high quality as “Creatures.” People complain that they don’t make ’em like they used to. Well, here’s one of them.
Prepare to be overwhelmed and moved in the best possible way.
The film begins streaming May 8 on Netflix.
‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’
Director: Olivia Newman
Stars: Sally Field, Lewis Pullman, Alfred Molina, Colm Meaney
Running Time: 1 hour, 51 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: May 8, 2026
Rating: 5 stars out of 5
What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to features@epochtimes.nyc
