‘Little Fish’ is a mental and emotional mind fuck, but in the best way possible. The story involves Jude (Jack O’Connell) and Emma (Olivia Cooke), a young, married couple living in Seattle sometime in the near future (we are led to believe in the year 2022) during a pandemic. Sound familiar? For all of our sanity, thankfully it is not Covid-19. This fictional pandemic is caused by a disease called NIA. As a result of catching NIA, people lose their memories. As Jude begins to lose his memory, Emma scrambles to find a cure while also reminding him of who he is.
To say I was caught off guard would be a severe understatement. I was completely knocked on my ass. I was stoked about this movie because of the talented Jack O’Connell and his performance was pretty great despite the American accent he botched. The film’s unique take on reality combined with completely unrealistic elements gave us a truly interesting twist on a pandemic love story.
The film is told through memories that Emma narrates. She is basically reliving these memories by telling them to Jude. Jude soon starts to forget her favorite color, their wedding day, their dog. At one point he knows he is about to forget her forever.
When I started the film, I didn’t realize the impact a person losing their memories would have on society as a whole. I thought to myself, “why is their town on lockdown when people are just losing their memories.?” I didn’t consider pilots forgetting how to fly planes, people forgetting how to drive cars, and sailors forgetting how to sail ships all while operating these machines. At one point in the film a woman forgets that she’s married and runs away from her husband while aboard a boat and jumps straight into the water to get away from him.
Unfortunately, there were a few bits of the film that didn’t quite add up. How long had this been going on? How exactly does this spread? And once a person loses their memory how long before they start a new life and lose it again? Alas, it’s just a film, but these are the things that plagued me as I watched.
Olivia Cooke’s performance was phenomenal. I was infuriated with her character’s selfishness, but terrified and sad for her character’s stubbornness and misfortune.
The film was written so well that the ending leaves you bewildered. (I literally sat at my laptop for 10 whole minutes talking to myself about what I had just watched). This film reflects the haunting reality of what happens when everyone can’t be saved and leaves us with that think about long after the credits roll.