Ryland Grace ends up alone in space with only a rock alien for company in this charming adaptation of Andy Weir’s third novel Project Hail Mary, reviewer Charlotte Cain writes.
Would you make a sacrifice to save mankind?
Grace finds out he is that sacrifice.
Eleven years after The Martian was released, Andy Weir has again teamed up with Drew Goddard to adapt another of his novels, Project Hail Mary.
Ryan Gosling stars as Grace, a science-teacher-turned-astronaut, in this adaptation of Weir’s 2021 novel. He wakes up alone on a spaceship, light years away from earth with no idea of how he got there.
As fragments of his memories start to return, we learn the sun is being dimmed by an alien microbe. Global warming will turn to global cooling, and a quarter of the population will die.
Or as he tells his students “A-small-to-medium-whoop.”
Somehow, an unknown middle school teacher is humanity’s final hope.
The governments of the world join forces to create a task force to investigate Tau-Ceti, the only star in the galaxy resistant to the alien microbes’ effects.
A one-way trip, a suicide mission.
Whilst he is drowning in his misery, he comes across Rocky who can only be described as a rock-like-spider.
The language barrier, unlike Arrival where they spent the entire film trying to communicate, is quickly solved by a homemade translator and is simplified for the purpose of continuing the plot.
Their simple communication adds to the comedy factor as Rocky fails to understand some of the things Grace says and it results in some crazy one-liners.
Like Grace, Rocky (voiced by James Ortiz) is very far from home, his friends and his planet. The rest of his crew perished on the voyage, and he is the only one who remains.
Together they embark on a wholesome adventure to the other side of the galaxy to save their respective planets from the microbe dimming their stars.
Project Hail Mary turns the threat of humanity’s demise into a light-hearted cosmic adventure whilst also keeping the core message of hope and love.
It’s one of those films that reminds you why you fell in love with the big screen. Not just the spectacle and scale but the feeling you get. That quiet sense of wonder that will stick in your head even days later.
Along with a literal rock, another of Gosling’s scene partners is the stellar Sandra Huller.
She stars as Eva Stratt, the brains behind the last-ditch space mission, a woman who is willing to do anything to save the planet with everyone she loves on it.
Project Hail Mary has the sci-fi spark of Interstellar’s impossible odds, whilst also including digestible science explanations that are easy to follow. For example, the Astrophage take in light to increase their velocity but as Grace puts it “they toot to scoot”.
This film for me carries the message of hope and friendship, when all the odds are stacked against Grace and he must prevail and learn to be brave, if not for himself, then for Rocky, as the fate of his world rests on his shoulders.
It’s refreshing in the way it combines catastrophe and comedy into a perfect medley of a human alien alliance and the classic sci-fi tropes of huge architecture and spaceships.
If anything, this film has shown me that maths is not actually the universal language, it’s love.
I hope others take from it that even in the face of extinction there is room for kindness and compassion towards people who are different from you and hope will always persevere in the face of despair.
Overall, it’s beautiful, emotional and you may find yourself staring at the sky with just a little more wonder than you did before.
Project Hail Mary is out on Amazon Prime now.
