Film Review: Project Hail Mary

  

Sexuality/Nudity No Objection

Violence Acceptable

Vulgarity Acceptable

Anti-Catholic Philosophy Mature

Project Hail Mary feels like a rare movie where the sci-fi spectacle is there to support a story and not vice-verse.  This is a movie about big human themes, wrapped in a sci-fi package.

The movie centers on Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), who wakes up on a spaceship several light years away from Earth.  He has partial amnesia and does not remember immediately why he is there or what he is supposed to do.  Through a series of flashbacks we find out that our sun is dying along with several other stars in the galaxy except one.  Eva Stratt (Sandra Huller) is leading an international team to send a team to that star on the spaceship Hail Mary to find out why before it is too late.  When Rylan gets to the new solar system he encounters another alien on a mission that he names Rocky.  Together they learn to communicate and form a friendship as they work together to save both their planets from doom.

.One of the things I really liked about this movie is that it is about something: courage and friendship.

The movie deals with what it means to be brave.  Rylan is someone who is very smart, but he is incredibly nervous and seems to lack the courage necessary for such a mission as his.  What he does, he does more out of necessity and desperation.  Even though he comes to remember that this mission is a one-way trip with no hope of return, his approach to solving the problem does not seem particularly borne from a stout heart.  As the story progresses, Rylan faces his fears little by little so that when the moment of truth comes, he has shaped his character to a place of bravery.

The movie also makes clear that courage must be rooted in love.  There must be something or someone to be brave for.  This is wear the exploration of friendship really takes center stage.  I've always said that part of friendship is speaking the same language.  In the case of the movie, this is literal as Rylan has to figure out a way for he and Rocky to communicate.  But in a deeper sense, friends must see the same truth and so their minds take up the same space.  This creates a special language between them that can only be found between friends.  These inside jokes are the fortifying walls of the relationship that reinforce its strength.  If I said the word "pals" or "golly," to my closest friends, it would have resonance with them and elicit chuckles in ways it wouldn't with others because of this shared language.  We can see this when Rylan and Rocky give each other the "thumbs down" for encouragement or Rocky yells, "Amaze!  Amaze!"

And this friendship is what draws you into the story and gives it its beating heart.  Not only does this movie show an strong example of friendship, but it is a very masculine type of friendship.  Here, the friends do not speak much about how they feel about each other.  Instead, it expressed in action.  It is expressed in the way that they joke with each other.  And it is expressed most in the sacrificial love that each one has.  To be sure, Rocky and Rylan talk deeply about their feelings, but it is done in a way men do, by peeling back the layers to help a friend in need.

I also love how respectful this movie is of faith.  With a title like Project Hail Mary, there could be a lot of jokes made at the expense of the Blessed Virgin.  Instead, the movie leans into this imagery.  In fact, the main character's name means that the Hail Mary is full of "Grace."  At one point Rylan asks Eva if she believes in God and she responds, "It's better than the alternative."  To be clear, this is not a Christian movie that tries to evangelize faith.  But it doesn't need to be.  What impressed me wasn't that it was promoting Christianity, but that it simply treated it with respect.

Visually, the movie is great.  Directors Philip Lord and Christopher Miller used as many practical effects and avoided CGI when possible.  I have no problem with CGI if its used well, but too often is seems rushed and artificial.  There is a tactile reality presented with the puppeteering of Rocky or the tangible sets of the Hail Mary.

The whole movie stands or falls on Gosling's performance and he is great.  There could be a lot of parts where he could go for overly emotional deliveries.  But he understands his character is more reserved and introverted.  This allows him to use his emotion with restraint.  But in doing so, every thing he does has power.  When he lets the damn break and allows himself to hope a little, you can see how that invigorates and hurts him at the same time.  His performance invests you in the central friendship.  Huller is the perfect Yang to Goslings Ying.  She is the lead weight of seriousness and lets his heart and humor fly.

The only issue I have with the film is in the flippant way it treats suicide.  When the astronauts talk about how the mission is a one-way trip, they speak very casually about how they will kill themselves at the end.  One of them says they hope to do it with lethal injection and heroin.  There is never any ethical pushback on this, which I found very odd.  It implied that there were no moral objections to euthanizing the crew.

Other than that though, the movie explores the issues of friendship and hope with real vigor.  You become thoroughly uplifted and invested in the fate of the characters and you know no matter how the story ends, you are going to be moved by what happens to them.