Second Chances and Sea Creatures

By Tammy Davis

I’ve never said these words before: the movie was as good as the book—maybe better. But with Remarkably Bright Creatures, now streaming on Netflix, I think it’s true.

It had been a while since I’d read Shelby Van Pelt’s bestselling novel about a lonely widow who cleans a small aquarium at night and forms an unlikely friendship with a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus. Watching the story on screen reminded me why I, along with so many others, fell in love with it in the first place.

The setup is delightfully simple: the octopus is smarter than the humans. It’s actually the clever Pacific octopus that pieces together a life-changing connection between Tova, the aquarium’s nighttime cleaner, and Cameron, a struggling young man searching for answers about his past. Marcellus figures everything out long before the humans (and the viewers) do.

In every good novel or movie, the characters long for something, and we, the audience, become invested in hoping they find it. Tova needs to discover what happened to her son. Cameron wants to find the man he believes is his father. And Marcellus? He just wants to return to the bottom of the ocean. One of Van Pelt’s greatest strengths as a writer is making us care about those quests. Their hopes become our hopes, and we find ourselves rooting for each of them to reach the truth—or the place—they’ve been searching for.

What stayed with me most was the story’s quiet belief that broken things can be mended. Despite the hell Tova and Cameron have been through, they still hold hope.

There’s an old proverb that says God’s mills grind slow but sure. Remarkably Bright Creatures reminds us that some truths take years to surface and some wounds take decades to heal. Answers may arrive later than we hoped. But life usually has a way of bringing people where they need to be as long as we don’t give up.

Bestselling author Brené Brown  says hope is an emotion for the brave, and that’s one of the truest quotes I know. Tova and Cameron have every reason to become bitter. Both have suffered profound losses. Both could have closed themselves off from the world. Instead, they remain open to friendship, possibility, and love. They keep moving forward even when they don’t know how their stories will end. To me, that’s the lesson of the novel. No matter what, even when it’s terrifying, we have to believe that better days may still be ahead. This story is ultimately about second chances and hope.

Spoiler Alert

If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, and plan to, stop here.

Cameron turns out to be Tova’s grandson. By the end of the story, the truth finally comes to light, and the human characters find the peace they’ve been searching for.

As for Marcellus? He also finds peace when his friend Tova returns him to the ocean.  In the novel and the movie, that scene is touching.  Van Pelt could have chosen any number of ways for Tova to transport Marcellus, but she chose a mop bucket. There’s something perfect about that image. Tova has spent years quietly cleaning up messes and setting things right. She struggles to push the cleaning caddy down the pier, but she does it anyway.  The right thing is almost always the hard thing, but that doesn’t stop Tova. She is determined to make things right for her friend.

Tova finds her own happy place as well, surrounded by family and friends in the home her grandfather built.

Tova and Cameron remind us that our own stories may not be finished yet. Healing might still be possible.  Family can be found in unexpected places. And, sometimes the things we’ve been searching for are closer than we realize.