e.g. The unmistakable substance of the film - the polymorphously perverse, intimate interspecies relationship - is hamfistedly, guiltily folded into an unconvincing framing narrative about Foster& #39;s human son (Tim). What is Tim doing in this movie? Reproductive futurism for days!!

Foster correctly maintains that helping her recover from the shark attack (she lost a whole limb) would be & #39;interfering.& #39; He also seems intermittently aware that making the documentary is itself & #39;interfering in her world.& #39; To what & #39;environment& #39; do his emotions belong? Unclear...

What *is* clear is that getting weird with the octopus must be justified in the name of becoming a better dad. She becomes "nature" again, rather than a unique being, whenever it seems necessary to account for the purpose/benefit of that relationship. It cannot stand on its own.

If you track Foster& #39;s use of she/her versus "it" to refer to the octopus, his lapses seem to correspond to the surfacing of his shame about having made, well, a documentary about the maiming (by shark) & suffering of a nonhuman person w/ whom he was in a significant relationship.

I& #39;m not saying I am sorry the docu was made, or that he & #39;should have& #39; behaved differently - only that there& #39;s something conspicuously queerphobic, repressed, about the fact that (because & #39;science& #39;!) Foster doesn& #39;t permit himself to hold her (even for a moment) when she is dying.