Project Hail Mary
Project Hail Mary
For many who have stepped back from movie theaters since the COVID pandemic, Project Hail Mary makes a strong case to take a trip to the big screen. More than a name for one of the peak movies in recent history, Project Hail Mary is Hollywood’s cinematic “hail mary” to lure people back to movies. A film adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 novel of the same name, the film sees Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), a former scientist working as a school teacher, reluctantly heading on a perilous space quest to save humanity from the Sun’s enigmatic decay. Grace wakes up from a twelve-year hibernation aboard a spacecraft and never remembers arriving, only to find out his crewmates have died. In addition to the premise of isolation in space, Project Hail Mary is a much larger, ambitious expansion of Weir’s earlier book The Martian.
Flashbacks suggest that Grace was hired by a global organization to study the deterioration of the Sun. The reason is known as astrophage — a group of simple, unicellular organisms that guzzle stellar power and exhaust not just the Sun of Earth, but nearly every star in the galaxy, save for Tau Ceti. A crew is dispatched to this unaffected star system with hopes of finding solutions that could prevent the extinction of Earth. But the mission is one-way: the astronauts have no hope of returning home. This time Grace arrives at Tau Ceti where he meets an alien looking much like a rock crab, he calls Rocky. Rocky is a single survivor from a similar mission to save his own planet’s star from that astrophage threat. Across vast differences, the two have to work to communicate with each other, work together and create a solution that is sufficient to save both worlds. The movie’s powerful storytelling and timely sharp wit has to be Ryan Gosling’s Grace. His on-screen acting brings in such incredible force that his relationship with the alien Rocky is beyond those we expect our human counterparts to achieve. And had it been a couple of months ago, even a movie like this one, Gosling’s performance would have earned a strong consideration for a Best Actor honor.
The cinematography shines even brighter, with mundane Earth flashbacks fitting nicely against the magical imagery of outer worlds. This is a film for the biggest possible screen, and IMAX format is particularly beautiful. Reports from book fans suggest the adaptation stays true to the story with the novel, which some people haven’t read. Whether people already know the source material or are confronted with its entirety anew, viewers can expect a two-and-a-half-hour long experience filled not only with awe, but wonder. Superlative performances from directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller accompany them. Gosling, Sandra Hüller, and James Ortiz as the voice of Rocky are outstanding performances. Project Hail Mary earns a lot of praise and is probably well placed to enter the Oscars next year.
Lead Image Courtesy of Jonathan Olley/ Amazon MGM Studios
