MechaPig

“Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up.”

The first thing that I noticed about Project Hail Mary was how human it was. Walking out of the theater I was taken aback at how the team can take a cold and desperate journey to the edge of space, for the very survival of mankind, and make it cozy and warm.

The film next effort from directing duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller and adapted from the novel by Andy Weir. The first Weir adaptation since 2015’s The Martian, a similarly optimistic and detail oriented story of one man’s trials and tribulations in the horror and beauty of space.

Talking Plot

This story follows Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), an elementary school science teacher as he wakes up with no memory on a spaceship bound for a distant star in order to find information that could save humanity from certain doom at the hands of a dimming sun. Throughout the tale Grace deals with issue after issue as he nearly dies and struggles to make due with limited resources and limited knowledge of how to run the very ship he’s on, the titular Hail Mary. Then, as spoiled by the film’s months long marketing campaign, he meets an adorable fellow astronaut from a distant planet on the same mission to discover why this particular star is immune to the same damage that’s ruining their respective suns. While Rocky was kept a secret from book readers until showing up in the actual pages, it makes sense to warn film audiences that they’re going into a movie all about connecting with an alien life form.

Let’s get this out of the way: Overall, it’s pretty great. It delicately manages to deliver both a breezy, watchable action/comedy that a general movie goer would love, as well as a whole textbook’s worth of hard science fiction premises and concepts that tickle my literary mind and make it worth a rewatch just to delight at the possibilities introduced and the many ways they could have been explored. There’s sun eating bacteria and sound based display technology, even the construction of the ship is marked in cool little ideas and physics workarounds had me smiling ear to ear. Heck, it makes me want to pick up the book to see if and if so how a lot of these more complex plot and world elements get explored and fleshed out.

Romancing the Stone

At it’s core, Project Hail Mary is a story of two dudes overcoming their differences and becoming bros. Much of the runtime is dedicated to Grace and a small alien named Rocky (named so due to of his resemblance to a pile of rocks) overcoming the language and culture barrier and learning how to work together. Once they do, the central problem of the dying sun pretty much solves itself. You would think, or at least I would, that a lot of that conflict would come from fighting between our two leads and them not understanding each other, fearing one another and assuming the worst, but no, as soon as the communication gap is closed the two are fast friends with complementary personalities.

I could have easily seen Hollywood make a version of this movie where our human protagonist is scared of Rocky, using his attempts to reach out as horror and saving his good-nature for a late plot twist that helps him finally save the day. It’s well worn ground. Humans are distrustful. Humans are hateful. It’s proven difficult to believe otherwise while living in the modern world, but luckily this is a movie with a different view of humanity. It’s a movie about one specific science teacher, and a very trusting alien engineer. Two people with already open minds and both made lonely by circumstance and somewhat desperate for a friend, or even just another voice to break the silence.

It’s refreshing, honestly, to see this kind of camaraderie between alien species. The chemistry between Gosling and the semi-practical puppet playing Rocky is shockingly good. Rocky might not have a face, in the traditional sense, but his movements and voice are emotive and give lots for Gosling to bounce off.

More than just Ken

Speaking of which, Gosling is the heart and soul of the film, giving a subtle but deeply emotional performance as biologist Grace deals with frustration and despondency while never loosing sight on his goal, once he remembers it anyway. That’s another really cool trick the movie plays, doling out information thought flashbacks in little nuggets and chunks that only reveal as much as he, and by extension the audience, need to know to help the current scene land with the desired impact. An early example is when Grace puts on a funeral for his dead crewmates long before they are even introduced as characters in flashbacks, opting instead to have Grace eulogize them with only the information he’s gleamed looking through their personal belongings and pictures. He remarks on how one of them must have been funny, because in every picture he’s making a silly face. He apologizes to the other for drinking her vodka and remarks that they must have been good friends before shooting her mummified body into space. It’s a dark scene, and one that stuck with me, by showing our perspective hero care so much for people he doesn’t even remember. In doing so we get a sense of his worldview and capacity for empathy, and it’s that empathy that permeates the film and gives it a unique tonal voice.

Every problem our two heroes encounter is a chance the film takes to show off their character work and the sharp writing. Rocky is blunt, fast thinking, clingy, but also caring and haunted by his inability to save his own crew from a similar fate as Grace’s. The two have an early scene where they bond over that shared trauma. Each taking a moment to properly show respect for the other’s grief. Respect is a good word for it. Both respect the characters show towards each other and the filmmakers show towards the audience. There are moments and bits of backstory that we can infer happen, and so the are cut from the story to make time for the here and now. We don’t need to know about Grace’s romantic failings, or how every part of Rocky’s ship works. Instead we get gorgeous scenes of alien atmospheres and stunning visual effects and set piece choreography.

In Summation

Project Hail Mary is a wild ride and one I can see coming back too whenever I feel like a good sci-fi story or a reminder of the power of kindness.

There’s a early scene back on earth where Grace and his government issued bodyguard and baby-sitter Carl (Lionel Boyce) need to recreate the atmosphere of Venus, and so naturally go to home-depot to buy supplies, and even with the fate of the world hanging over their heads, they manage to make it fun. Juggling duct tape roles, bowling with foil boxes as pins, and buying candy for the rest of the stern faced government agents securing the lab. It’s a simple scene with little dialogue but I can’t help but feel that it’s a thesis statement for the entire work. Even when the chips are down and we face seemingly impossible problems, we’re still just people, and people will always find a way to connect.