New 'Little Fish' Clip Teases an Eerily Relevant Sci-Fi Romance
THE CLIP GIVES US A BRIEF LOOK AT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ITS TWO MAIN CHARACTERS, WHILE ALSO HINTING AT THE OVERALL PLOT: A MEMORY-LOSS VIRUS WHOSE SPREAD MIRRORS OUR REAL LIFE STRUGGLE WITH COVID-19.
IFC Films released a new clip from their upcoming film “Little Fish”, written by Mattson Tomlin and directed by Chad Hartigan, on Thursday. The 72-second-long clip shows the film’s two lead characters, Emma (Olivia Cooke) and Jude (Jack O’Connell), who are married, having a conversation about adopting a dog, only for Emma to reveal that they’ve had a discussion about it already. It becomes quickly apparent that something is affecting Jude’s memory.
This dialogue exchange teases the main plot of “Little Fish”: the film takes place in 2021, amidst the spread of a memory loss-inducing virus. The very fabric of Emma and Jude’s marriage is threatened when the latter is seemingly infected with the virus, and they must fight to hold their relationship together. It might seem, reading that, that “Little Fish” is another “Songbird” - a cheaply exploitative movie capitalizing off of COVID-19 - but it was actually filmed nearly two years ago, and ironically had its premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival scrubbed, due to that festival’s postponement at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.
“When ‘Little Fish’ was made in 2019, the idea of an international pandemic seemed like a piece of science-fiction,” read IFC’s press release for the clip, “but now in 2021, it’s the reality we are living.” The film’s trailer, released back in November, only amplifies the parallels between “Little Fish” and real life, while still emphasizing the central relationship between Emma and Jude that Thursday’s clip smartly centers itself on.
Also featuring Raúl Castillo and Soko in supporting roles, with music by Keegan DeWitt (“Her Smell”), “Little Fish” looks to be an intriguing, but also eerily relevant mixture of science fiction and romance, with elements of “Memento” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” mixed in so as to strengthen the audience’s bond with Emma and Jude.
“Little Fish” releases in theaters and on demand on February 5th, 2021. Check out the new clip down below.