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Now Playing: ‘Project Hail Mary’ delivers a humorous sci-fi crowd pleaser
By: Gordon Briggs
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Our sun is dying, and Earth doesn’t have much longer to live. Our only hope is a crew of astronauts who will build a ship, launch into space, and carry out a dangerous mission to save our dying world. However, when the mission goes awry, our planet’s only hope is an ordinary science teacher with no astronaut experience.
What first impressed me about the film was the visuals. Gone are the slick, polished exteriors of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Protagonist Ryland Grace’s (Ryan Gosling) spacecraft may be advanced, but it is also messy and cluttered—like most living quarters or offices when we are buried in a project. Instead of a sleek, futuristic aesthetic, the visual style favors functional engineering. That visual choice makes the scientific process feel more tangible. When Gosling’s astronaut finally ventures out for a spacewalk, he is surrounded by a vibrant, nebula-like cloud that is striking on a big screen.
While the technical aspects of Project Hail Mary may be impressive, the movie largely works because of Ryan Gosling. Not only does the actor have to appear in almost every scene and carry much of the film’s emotional weight, but he must also convey complex scientific information to an audience that probably has no clue what he is talking about. The movie solves this problem by making the astronaut look and sound like an ordinary person.
Unlike a traditional action hero, his character, named Ryland Grace, is portrayed as a bit of a coward who tries to avoid a dangerous, one-way mission, making him feel more realistic and vulnerable. Specifically, I enjoy how Gosling reacts with genuine amazement and enthusiasm at the incredible feats he’s accomplishing. It’s so refreshing to see a sci-fi film where the characters actually get excited about science.
While the saving-the-world storyline has been done before in several science fiction action movies (Armageddon, 1998; Sunshine, 2007; Interstellar, 2014), those films usually play the material with stone-faced seriousness. Project Hail Mary takes a different direction.
The film builds several comedic situations out of Grace’s predicament. I feel directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and screenwriter Drew Goddard use humor to break the tension during intense, life-or-death situations, ensuring that the heavy subject matter is never overwhelming to viewers. However, if there’s a small gripe I had with the movie, it’s that the reliance on humor sometimes undercuts the seriousness of the situation the planet is supposed to be in. Earth is dying, but because the movie doesn’t want to be depressing, I always felt everything was going to be okay.
Those gripes quickly went away with the arrival of “Rocky”, an intelligent, spider-like alien who is on his own mission to save his planet. As the two lonely astronauts learn to communicate with each other, the movie suddenly gains both an emotional core and a central organizing relationship. The friendship between Gosling and the tiny alien will delight most audiences. This unusual relationship is marked not only by humor but also by genuine scientific curiosity and mutual respect, with Rocky helping the initially lonely Grace become a braver and more selfless person.
In a time when movies often place visuals and sensation above character, I commend Project Hail Mary for embracing humor and interspecies friendship. More importantly, in a time when explorations of loneliness and isolation are becoming a larger part of our public discourse, Project Hail Mary offers a useful examination of how communication and empathy with those who are different can become the key to our salvation. ★★★½