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Project Hail Mary – Film Review

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub, Priya Kansara

Directors: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Synopsis: After waking up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there, an unlikely astronaut is tasked with a desperate mission to save the Earth…

Review: What would you do if you awoke from a coma and found yourself the only person alive on a spaceship light-years away from home, with no recollection of who you are or how you got there? At first, your reaction might be one of confusion, which soon gives way to panic and sheer terror. However, as the pieces of your memory slowly but surely reassemble, you realise that you’re humanity’s last hope for a desperate mission, a Hail Mary if you will (a term defined as a last-ditch pass in American football), where failure will mean life as humanity knows it will witness a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions as the sun slowly dies. No big whoop (!).

This most unlikely of heroes is Ryland Grace (Gosling), who while living on Earth, was a high school science teacher and molecular biologist. We learn through a series of flashbacks that Grace was recruited by the non-nonsense, straight-talking Eva Stratt (Hüller) to study astrophage, leading to the troubling discovery that this microorganism absorbs energy from our sun and infects other stars. Upon realising that astrophage is a fuel source, the governments of the world form a plan to send a crew of astronauts on board a ship, the Hail Mary, on a one-way trip to a distant star unaffected by the substance. Upon waking up from his coma, and looking like a long-lost member of The Beatles during their hippy era, Grace learns he is the sole survivor. Yet, despite being millions of miles away from home, Grace soon discovers he may not be alone in his mission to prevent the sun from dying.

Throughout film history, and indeed as history itself has taught us, the vast, infinite void of outer space can understandably seem like a truly terrifying entity, showing us how infinitely small we really are within the vast spectrum of our solar system. In addition, it also shows how perilous a place it can be if you make even the slightest wrong move. Yet the reverence for space, and the science by which humanity propelled itself into it, are evident in Andy Weir’s novels. That veneration was captured so magnificently by Ridley Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard in the adaptation of The Martian. Therefore, it is no surprise that Goddard has, after making his directorial debut in 2018, returned to Weir’s to adapt his 2021 novel, again depicting another man isolated and cut adrift from any other human soul. Only, instead of the rest of the planet banding together to get one man off the Red Planet and return home, it falls to one man (and a companion) to save the Earth and humanity from their slow and inevitable doom if the Sun were to die.

In the same vein as The Martian, Goddard’s script effortlessly balances the bleak reality of humanity’s fate if the mission fails with the humour of finding the most reluctant hero of them all in space. “I put the not in astronaut,” Grace defiantly states during a crucial meeting. He might not be able to do a moonwalk, but he has the necessary scientific knowledge to pull off a miracle. It is fitting in a movie where the fate of Planet Earth rests in the hands of one man, where the film will live or die on this performance, that Gosling meets the moment and delivers a cosmically brilliant performance. Here’s an actor who has the range to deliver the stoic and serious when required, but can also effortlessly switch it up with humour when required, especially when it comes to Grace’s extraterrestrial company. The details of which shall not be spoiled here, but suffice to say, the chemistry between Grace and this mysterious being is perfectly delivered, proving that no matter who is acting opposite him, Gosling has chemistry with anyone and possesses charm that can last for days, maybe even light-years.

In a world that is more bitterly divided and fraught with each passing day, with certain sections of society going so far as to question well-established science, the film’s championing of science and its central theme of humanity and alien life working together to achieve a common goal feel particularly pertinent. If two creatures who have never met before can come together to achieve a common goal, it should serve as a lesson for all of us to do the same, given the very existential threat we face in the 21st century. The exact specifics of the science that is causing the sun to die might whizz over audiences’ heads initially, but the film’s key message about the importance of science as a means of working together to solve problems shines through and will not be lost on anyone.

Greig Fraser’s majestically dazzling cinematography adds plenty of awe and spectacle throughout, making the audience feel like they’re along for this ride with Grace. After more than a decade away from the director’s chair(s), Lord and Miller’s confident direction, with another cerebral score from Daniel Pemberton, allows the film’s humour, science, and mission to mesh perfectly like scientific samples in a test tube, arriving at the perfect conclusion. Space can undoubtedly be hazardous and perilous, but anyone who doesn’t find themselves swept up in the enthralling and heart-warming interstellar ride about the most unlikely of friendships in the most unlikely of circumstances, then you might just have a heart made out of stone.