Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for the book and movie adaptation of “Remarkably Bright Creatures.”

“Remarkably Bright Creatures” gave booklovers a dose of hope and comfort when it published in 2022, and now moviegoers will get to experience the magic, too.

Shelby Van Pelt’s novel follows an elderly widow and a wayward young man who make a profound connection with a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium where they work. Marcellus the octopus, a narrator, even uncovers a mystery. In Netflix’s adaptation, Sally Field stars as Tova and Lewis Pullman as Cameron. Alfred Molina voices Marcellus.

Readers will enjoy that the adaptation maintains the comforting found-family elements of the book. Like any Hollywood adaptation, the film removes some side-plots (like Tova’s brother dying) and keeps others beat-for-beat. But there are two big changes that fans of the novel can expect.

Tova and Cameron meet right away, giving Cameron less backstory

The book is split into three primary perspectives: Tova, Cameron and Marcellus. Tova and Cameron don’t collide until midway through the book, when Cameron gets a job at the aquarium in Sowell Bay.

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But in the movie, the pair meet a mere 18 minutes into the 90-minute film. Cameron bursts into town in a beat-up van he inherited from his late mother. He’s after money from the man he thinks is his biological father, a classmate of his mother’s. When the van breaks down, he’s stuck in Sowell Bay with no place to live and no way to travel. Friendly grocer Ethan hooks him up with a temporary job at the aquarium. Through conversations with Tova and Marcellus, we learn that his mother had addiction issues and “didn’t stick around.” He spent his childhood migrating from relatives’ houses to friends’. His mother recently died, leaving Cameron her home – the van.

Cameron (Lewis Pullman) and Tova (Sally Field) look after the octopus Marcellus in “Remarkably Bright Creatures.”
Netflix

But by dropping us into Cameron’s road trip, the movie simplifies his backstory. In the book, we learn his mother, an addict, left him with his aunt when he was 9 years old. Aunt Jeanne, who raised Cameron alone, is a big part of his life. She even gives him a box of his mother’s things, which is how he finds clues to his father’s identity. But she’s absent from the movie.

Cameron seems a bit more competent by way of Pullman. He’s determined, if a little bit aimless. But if you’ve read the book, you may agree with the Goodreads reviewers dubbing him an “insufferable manchild.” Book Cameron has a victim complex and can’t hold down a job. At the beginning of the book, his girlfriend kicks him out of the apartment because he didn’t tell her he got fired again. He’s constantly forgetting to submit paperwork and emails. Only after he’s forced to crash at his bandmate’s house does he decide to fly to Washington in search of his father. When he lands, Cameron loses his luggage, including the jewelry he hopes to sell to pay for room and board. A fellow traveler sells him a camper.

Fewer clues lead to Marcellus’ big reveal

Our precocious octopus friend is the one who brings Cameron and Tova together, having realized that they are related. He’d like to help them each reach happiness. In both the book and movie, Marcellus can tell that the pair share a common link just by observing them. When Cameron tosses his father’s class ring into the eel tank, it’s Marcellus who risks his life to retrieve it. He wants to show Tova that it’s her son Erik’s ring, making Cameron her grandson.

But in the book, Marcellus tries several times to solve the mystery of Erik’s death. Before his captivity, he saw Erik’s clothes and key at the bottom of the sea where he had drowned. When Tova loses her key, Marcellus finds it and recognizes it as an exact copy of the one in the sea. He returns it to her and wishes he could tell her more.

At another point, Cameron leaves his driver’s license at the aquarium and Marcellus moves it to a place he knows Tova will see it. He wants her to see that he shares a last name with the girl her son had been seeing. The ring may be what clinches the conclusion, but book Marcellus has been laying the clues all along.