Little Fish is a new romantic film relevant to our times with sci-fi elements has just come out in video on demand and a few select theaters which will please sci-fi fans and their dates while offering genuine emotions to all viewers.

Little Fish takes place during a pandemic where people from all walks of life are randomly infected with a debilitating disease that robs them of their memories. The disease, neuro-inflammatory affliction (NIA), can be easily compared to Alzheimer’s disease but young people contract the disease, as well. Little Fish devotes its screentime on how NIA affects a young newlywed couple, Emma (Olivia Cooke) and Jude (Jack O’Connell), as the disease eats away at their treasured memories of their relationship.

Elevated by strong performances and haunting and scintillating cinematography, Little Fish hits the appropriate emotional beats as it explores the couple’s love for each other as they grapple with NIA. At the start of the film, the couple see firsthand how devastating the disease is when their mutual friend Ben (Raul Castillo), a musician, struggles to remember how to play his guitar and then his relationship with his partner, Samantha (Soko). It is not long before she becomes a complete stranger to him, who he sees as an actual threat to him.

Emma and Jude go about their lives; she is a veterinarian who is forced to euthanize dogs after their owners forget them, while Jude is a photographer who begins to forget certain little things like his wedding photography assignment or a recent conversation he had with Emma. Now that Jude has contracted NIA, the couple is desperate to find at least some kind of treatment. Throughout the film, we see other NIA sufferers and the impact on society. These include, roving and constant police patrols searching for missing persons who forgot their addresses or who they are; people who have their personal information tattooed onto themselves; throngs of desperate people rioting as they try to get treated for NIA. Then there are the quacks and conspiracy nutjobs flooding social media and the internet with supposed cures.

Director Chad Hartigan knows enough not to let the film’s focus drift away too much into the outside world. Instead, the attention is kept on Emma and Jude. Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell have a pleasant and easygoing chemistry with each other, which makes Jude’s descent into amnesia all the more disheartening. There are many insightful moments when we witness how his memories become faulty. In one scene, we are shown how people in the memory of his wedding become little more than fuzzy silhouettes. Many of their moments are poignant as Emma and Jude clutch onto the small moments in their past that drew them to each other. There are times, the film potentially becomes treacly, but Hartigan has enough restraint to reel in such emotional hazards and keeps the feelings in check.

Little Fish is an emotionally satsifying indie film that leaves you pondering and treasuring your own memories. It is the kind of film that will please romantics without being overly sentimental since it is quite honest with its story and the journey of its characters.