Remarkably Bright Creatures

Each night at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, 70-year-old custodian Tova Sullivan quietly tends to her routine work. She’s recently bonded with the giant Pacific octopus, Marcellus, despite the language (and species) barriers between them. Marcellus privately tracks his 1,299th day in captivity, aware that his life is nearing its natural end. One night, Tova discovers that he has escaped his tank (he escaped to hunt for better food) and tangled himself up in power cords. She frees him and returns him to his tank, saving his life. Marcellus later explains how dangerous it is to escape his tank, though the benefits have been worth it to him thus far.

Tova’s longtime group of friends, who call themselves the “Knit-Wits,” worry she’s overworking herself and offer financial support. Tova refuses, maintaining she’s fine and that she prefers to stay busy. She reflects on her son, Erik, who disappeared 30 years ago at sea under mysterious circumstances; though it was ruled a suicide, Tova never believed this. Returning home from the visit with her friends, she learns that her estranged brother, Lars, has died.

Meanwhile, in California, 30-year-old Cameron Cassmore visits his Aunt Jeanne at her mobile home. Raised by Jeanne after his mother, Daphne, abandoned him, Cameron struggles to find direction in his adult life. After being fired from yet another job, his girlfriend dumps him and he takes refuge with his old friends Brad and Elizabeth, who are expecting their first child soon. Cameron feels increasingly adrift as Brad announces he’s leaving their band to focus on fatherhood after the baby comes.

At the local Shop-Way grocery store, Tova greets the owner, Ethan Mack, who offers condolences on Lars’s death. She asks if he’ll drive her to Charter Village, the retirement home where Lars lived, to retrieve her late brother’s belongings. Ethan, who’s always been fond of Tova, quickly agrees to help. While Tova gathers Lars’s things, Ethan tours the upscale retirement community. Packing up his truck with Lars’s possessions, he notices a resident application tucked away, a sign that Tova may be planning to move here, herself.

At the aquarium, Marcellus surprises Tova when he returns a house key that she had lost a year earlier. Reflecting on what drove him to return the key, Marcellus explains that it resembles one he once saw underwater—before his time in captivity—and thinks it could be linked to Tova’s son. The next night, while trying to clean Marcellus’s tank, Tova falls, injures her ankle, and is forced to take a temporary leave from work. Increasingly isolated after her husband Will’s death two years ago, she begins to seriously consider moving to Charter Village.

Back in California, Cameron finds a class ring and photo of his mother with an unfamiliar boy among her old things, hinting at a connection to Sowell Bay, Washington. Cameron flies to Washington and buys a cheap camper van to take him to Sowell Bay. He meets Ethan when he stops at the grocery store, and Ethan helps him land a maintenance job at the aquarium while he searches for real estate developer Simon Brinks, the man from the photo with his mother who he believes is his father. Meanwhile, Tova puts her house on the market, hiding the decision from her friends so that they don’t make a fuss. After visiting Will and Erik’s graves one afternoon, she stops at Shop-Way, where Ethan asks her to tea. Later, she and Cameron meet when she stops by the aquarium after-hours to say hello to Marcellus. They talk, and Tova teaches him how to befriend the octopus. Marcellus, ever observant, sees what they are both blind to: Cameron and Tova have the same walk and the same dimple on their cheeks. Cameron is Tova’s grandson.

Cameron tracks down an old address linked to Simon Brinks. With Ethan’s help, they visit it, but it’s a dead end. Still, they finish the day with a spontaneous off-roading adventure, bonding in the process. In the days that follow, Cameron also deepens his new relationship with Avery, a local surf shop owner and single mother. During a paddleboarding date out on Puget Sound, Avery challenges Cameron’s assumptions about the story of his mother’s abandonment.

At a farewell lunch for a Knit-Wit member who’s moving away, Tova learns from one of Erik’s old classmates that Erik had a girlfriend when he died—and neither she nor Will had had any idea. This revelation rocks her world, even distracting her from the joy she should be feeling after accepting an offer on her house. After she learns that the name of her son’s girlfriend was Daphne, she locates Erik’s old yearbook and tracks down her last name: Cassmore.

Terry, the aquarium’s owner, asks Cameron to finish up some paperwork and leave his driver’s license on the desk before he heads out for the night. But Marcellus, determined to help Tova and Cameron understand the truth, escapes his tank, takes Cameron’s license, and hides it beneath the sea lion statue—a spot he knows Tova will clean. While showing Cameron how to clean the statue the next night, she indeed discovers the license. Shocked by his last name, she asks about his mother. When he says her name was Daphne, she realizes Erik’s girlfriend was Cameron’s mother. Connecting the dots, it dawns on them that they might be family, but neither is yet ready to believe it.

Cameron, still chasing answers, finally lands a meeting with the elusive Simon Brinks—who confirms he was only close friends with Daphne and isn’t Cameron’s father. Disillusioned, Cameron decides to return to California. Before he leaves, he stops by the aquarium to retrieve some personal belongings. Though Tova urges him not to abandon the people who care about him, he throws his mother’s class ring into the wolf eel tank and storms out. Marcellus, understanding the ring’s significance, exhausts himself later that evening to retrieve it.

As Tova says goodbye to all of the creatures on her last day of work before departing for Charter Village, she finds Marcellus in Terry’s office, pale and nearing death. She quickly revives him and finds that he is sitting on Daphne’s class ring. She realizes that Erik’s initials, E.E.LS., are engraved upon it, confirming that Cameron is her grandson. Overwhelmed, she takes Marcellus to the sea and releases him, grateful for his friendship and his help. She decides that she will not move to Charter Village after all, preferring to remain in the town that has been her home since childhood.

On the way to California, Cameron’s van breaks down, and he fixes it himself, realizing he’s capable of more than he believed. He decides to return to Sowell Bay. On the morning of Tova’s moving day, he shows up at her door to apologize. She gives him Erik’s—his father’s—class ring, and they share an emotional reunion. Swimming freely in the ocean, and aware that his end is closer than ever before, Marcellus reflects that, despite their flaws, humans can be “remarkably bright creatures.”

A month later, Tova and Cameron have settled into new lives. Cameron pursues an engineering degree and dates Avery; Tova’s moved into a new condo and volunteers at the aquarium, where she recently funded the construction of a new octopus statue. After Thanksgiving dinner, Tova, Cameron, and Ethan walk to the pier. As Tova stands alone by the sea, reflecting on Erik and Marcellus, she acknowledges it’s time to move on.