Wisdom evades unintentionally funny ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’
Remember those fantastic YouTube videos, imagining what movies would look like if they ended the second someone said the title on screen? Never before has anything actually done that as literally or as embarrassingly as “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” whose story is over, to be fair, but ends on such a ridiculous note by literally rolling credits THE SECOND the title is said out loud. It’s so bad that the movie is almost worth seeing just for that.
Nah, it’s not. Based on Shelby Van Pelt’s hugely popular novel, this is the kind of adaptation that makes people who haven’t read the book (me) presume things worked way better on the page and those who have (my wife) be like, yup. It makes sense: in writing, the inner monologue of a wise octopus – dumb sentence, but moving on – might have a certain endearing poetry, I guess. Especially as the story examines loneliness and perception in a small community that still struggles to communicate effectively among its gossiping residents. Yet director/co-writer Olivia Newman (“Where the Crawdads Sing”) can’t make this anything but laughable; voiced by Alfred Molina, Marcellus is either annoying, obnoxious (“Oh, the tedium of human mating rituals”), or corny, but never appealing or helpful to the narrative. “Though she lives in a larger tank than me, I can deduce that she also longs to break free.” Ugh, that’s bad writing in any form. “My gastronomical satisfaction depends on it.” Worse. “She was hurt long ago but still feels that wound exposed.” Make it stop.
The plot underwhelms too: Tova (Sally Field) struggles with whether or not to sell her house while still battling flashbacks of her late son. (She has far fewer flashbacks of her late husband, who died much more recently.) Cameron (Lewis Pullman, Bill Pullman’s son who has never proven he can be anything but that) arrives in this coastal Washington state town looking for the father who abandoned him and his mother, who recently overdosed. Wouldja believe this dude, very much dealing with the trauma of a difficult upbringing as well as the minutes-old demise of his non-successful band, somehow endears himself to the elderly lady as he takes over her cleaning role at the aquarium (hence Marcellus’ comments on their behavior, though eventually Newman just says screw it and lets us hear Marcellus’ thoughts when the characters are nowhere near the aquarium)? And same for his impact on the local shopkeeper (Colm Meaney) and the only eligible gal in town (Sofia Black D’Elia), even though she’s also got secrets and issues that the movie very much can’t handle?
Field does what she can, and a late moment does achieve the emotional catharsis it seeks. Which hardly alleviates the horror of a scene attempting to get a laugh from the awkward glee of senior ladies giggling over date night, or the persistent imposition of Marcellus, who the characters might not love if they could hear his thoughts too.
If you like movies where not a single relationship feels credible, “Remarkably Bright Creatures” might work for you. If you have any awareness of when a plot is manipulating you or when actors (Pullman) are flattening any potential for intriguing rough edges, you will take this movie’s straight-to-Netflix arrival not as a sign of the streamer’s dominance but merely confirmation that no amount of book sales can compensate for filmmaking this soggy.
C-
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