Project Hail Mary
The kind of high-minded science fiction Hollywood rarely produces these days, the adaptation of the newest Andy Weir novel is very much like the adaptation of The Martian with enough now familiar ‘Weir-isms’ that the form is starting to be defined. This includes extended, video assisted epistles to push the exposition along without dragging it down among scattered humor and can-do optimism crashing into supposedly impossible problems. Within that filmmaking duo Lord and Miller (The Lego Movie) have pulled out a supremely human film buoyed by the friendship between a man and a rock, and a reminder what big-budget studio filmmaking can accomplish. Project Hail Mary is a breath of fresh air even as it starts to wear out its welcome.
Which is not to say it feels completely original the way Weir’s first attempt at heady, humanistic sci-fi did. Beginning as blog entries, the original version of The Martian made logical use of the medium it was first created for to resurrect the epistolary form with a series of recordings by its doomed astronaut documenting his attempt to save himself (rather than letters of doomed 17th century melodrama the form is more known for). Having broken through and with all the options for storytelling available without the need to sell himself again, Weir’s followed was told in … a series of recordings by its doomed astronaut, Ryland Grace, (Gosling) documenting his attempt to save Earth.
Except for the points where his recordings also include his alien best friend, Rocky (Ortiz).
Which is clearly the biggest, and best, change from The Martian – and not because it has an actual Martian, or Erid -- that Grace has someone to talk to and bounce off of even as he grapples with both the how great the problem is he is trying to solve and the reality he will probably not survive the attempt.
The Sun is dying, its fuel being slowly eaten away by a strange alien microbe which can survive the extreme temperatures and seems unstoppable. Faced with the possibility of extinction, the human race marshals all of its resources in finding a solution under the firm control of Eva Stratt (Hüller) who makes clear there is nothing she won’t do to succeed. When Grace, dis-Graced astrobiologist with some strange idea about life in the galaxy who has been reduced to teaching high school, discovers the possibility of a cure in the far reaches of space a bold plan is developed to send a crew of astronauts on a potentially one-way journey to the star Tau Ceti. Including Grace, whether he likes it or not.
Though its individual scenes are frequently stolen by Rocky and, when she’s around Hüller, it sits on Gosling’s shoulders who carries Project Hail Mary with grace and charm. It takes a strong presence to carry extended amounts of screen time alone, potentially without dialogue (unless, like 2001, the film is specifically trying to underplay presence or humanity), a situation Grace finds himself in when he awakens around Tau Ceti from a medically induced coma to discover none of his other crewmates survived the trip and he has lingering retrograde amnesia from the coma. Facing the terror of being alone in a spaceship in the middle of nowhere and no idea what to do, Grace responds with … math. What could easily be overdone either in its dread or its silliness instead balances steadily between the two without overwhelming. It speaks volumes to Lord and Miller’s facility with comedy and Gosling’s willingness to just go for it against a literal backdrop of nothing. It’s the kind of difficult acting work which can easily go unnoticed but requires depth at the level of representing trauma as well.
It doesn’t last, but that’s a good thing. Shortly after arriving in orbit around Tau Ceti, Grace is joined by an alien spacecraft sent from 40 Eridani which is suffering the same problem as Earth and which also has only one survivor … a three limbed rock creature Grace nicknames ‘Rocky.’ After overcoming the differences in communication the unlikely pair find themselves jointly battling against loneliness and isolation as much as the lifeform destroying their solar systems, transforming Hail Mary from heady sci-fi drama to buddy movie until it realizes it has to snap back to its plot.
In between Grace gradually recovers more memories about how he got into his present circumstances … a device which is very useful before Rocky arrives and much less so after. Hail Mary falls into this trap more than once, unsure what to trim and what to keep and tacking on more and more material from the book to an increasingly lengthy run time.
For the most part, the film can weather it with the strength of Gosling’s movie star chops and some genuinely inspired imagery from Lord and Miller adding grandeur to an ultimately human story of connection and friendship.
Hollywood should probably make some more movies like this. Weir should write something different next time out, though.
8 out of 10.
Starring Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub and Priya Kansara. Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller.