Warning: The following story contains spoilers about the movie Project Hail Mary.
Our vast cosmos, with all of its endless little quirks and mysteries, has long been the subject of deep human fascination. For some, a gateway to the questions underlying our existence; for others, the ultimate scientific puzzle to be put together, space is among the few things that has bound all living things together throughout all time. And Hollywood, in its creative pursuits, is by no means exempt from humans’ search to interpret it.
Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s Project Hail Mary is the movie industry’s latest attempt at this. Rated at 95% by Rotten Tomatoes’ critics and about the same by its guest users, the film has seen tremendous success since its release on Mar. 20. Naturally, I had to go and check it out.
Based on Andy Weir’s 2021 novel of the same name, Project Hail Mary begins with a familiar in medias res structure. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), a 40-ish-year-old middle school science teacher, wakes up from a four-year-long coma aboard a spaceship. His crewmates are dead, he doesn’t remember much of anything, and slowly, the film follows both his life leading up to the current moment and his figuring things out in the present.
Grace learns that he is on a mission to save the entire galaxy from an alien microorganism called “astrophage” that is slowly eating up all stars, including our sun. He meets a different alien, a rock-like, spider-looking animal, whom he calls Rocky. They become friends, devise a plan to destroy the astrophage, and then successfully execute it.
The storyline with Rocky is certainly endearing. He and Grace learn to communicate using a computer translation software, and, over time, become close friends. Rocky saves Grace’s life; then, Grace saves his. The movie ends with the two back on Rocky’s own planet, living happily ever after.
What’s perhaps most striking about the picture, once you really realize it, is its daring bid into one-man-show territory. Nowadays, the genre has almost entirely been overtaken by the modern 500-character cast, and so watching Gosling almost singlehandedly steer this two-and-a-half-hour ship was, if anything, novel. Of course, there are the flashback scenes from his past or his time spent with Rocky, but the former feels cursory and meant strictly for filling readers in, while the latter comes off as portraying something of an owner-pet relationship.
In this respect, I think that it is simultaneously where some of the film’s key highs and lows are manifested. Gosling plays his part quite well, especially given its aforementioned structural context. He takes a frankly slow-moving plot, at least in the flick’s first half, and confers upon it an admirably personal, entertaining sort of touch.
However, I would say that his jokes, after a while, feel a bit repetitive (again, if only because we don’t really get many other characters who could reciprocate them). And, sitting in the theatre, I found myself wondering how absorbable a one-man-act like this might be for the modern audience’s historically short attention span.
Nonetheless, other parts of the film shine. Its soundtrack, alternating between Daniel Pemberton’s original score and an excellent selection of different songs, fit perfectly in with what was happening on-screen. The visuals were, at times, very cool, and the plot was entertaining enough.
I guess the one big thing that comes to mind when watching Project Hail Mary is its similarity to its predecessors. To me, it felt like somebody watched Interstellar, was profoundly shaken by it, and then decided to go write a book with a similar storyline, except using aliens. (And, to be fair, were I a writer, after watching Interstellar, I might have done the same!) My parents, watching alongside me, remembered The Martian, which I haven’t seen but which is based on a book also by Weir, and remarked on how alike the two were.
All in all, Project Hail Mary is a nice, light, Friday-night family movie. Though feeling at least somewhat cliché, it’s entertaining, affectionate, and generally well-made. If you’re ever bored at home, try it out—it might just be the outer space adventure for which you’ve unwittingly been yearning.
