How would we truly react if we found out the Earth was going to become uninhabitable? What would our instincts tell us, and would we act on them? What sacrifices would we make to save ourselves from demise?
These are the questions that lie at the heart of Project Hail Mary, a film adaptation of the 2021 book by Andy Weir. Released on March 20 and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the film follows a middle school biology teacher, Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), as he wakes up in an unfamiliar spaceship. All other crew members are dead, and he has no memories from before and only retrieves his past life gradually. He slowly remembers his job as a teacher, the catastrophic global cooling of the Earth, and his assignment to fix it.
From the very beginning, Gosling is effortlessly likable. He feeds us the compelling archetype of an ordinary failure turned into the chosen one. Although Grace is scrappy and kind, one cannot help but feel motivated and sympathize with the disappointments he encounters, the insecurities he feels and the overall vulnerability he displays throughout the film. He is both curious and terrified, a duality that Gosling masterfully navigates.
In a cinematic landscape where the “chosen one” character — like Tony Stark and Harry Potter — is often defined by innate genius or destiny, Grace’s messiness provides a refreshing change. Tony Stark has his billions and a supernatural intellect. Harry Potter has the protection of fate and his overwhelming fame.
Grace, in contrast, is disgraced by the science community for contradicting a more famous scientist and lives in a deep-seated fear of more failure. He seemingly lacks a grand destiny. Instead, he relies on frantic trial-and-error and his moral compass to navigate the terrifying situation he finds himself in, giving him a relatable “average man” quality. He earns his heroism simply by persisting and asking questions. The common viewer can find something deeply inspiring and resonant in this portrayal.
Much of the film covers Grace’s friendship with the spider-shaped rock-like alien that he nicknames “Rocky.” Without a shared language or even the shared ability to breathe oxygen, this bond evolves into a deeply moving story of companionship.
Rocky and Grace forge a relationship through their frustrations over their failures and their desperation to save their homes from destruction. They are able to navigate their differences by building space suits to coexist. They share stories. They empathize deeply with each other’s losses. In the monumental problem they are setting out to solve, Grace and Rocky find a lifeline in each other. It is this relationship that drives the plot forward and makes the film truly moving.
The film’s visuals further amplify this emotional connection, masterfully capturing the sense of existential dread. Sweeping wide shots of the “Petrova Line,” a haunting arc of microbes stretching toward the sun, and Rocky’s ship, a set of immense beam-like structures, emphasize just how small Grace is. The cinematography then balances this grand, terrifying scale with claustrophobic shots of Grace’s ship, the Hail Mary. This contrast makes the audience feel the sense of the void as much as the characters do.
Despite the heavy emotions that run through the film, it occasionally stumbles by diluting the darker implications of the story. We can see this shortcoming through the character Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), a technocrat granted absolute authority to save the planet and the coordinator of Grace’s mission. Hüller portrays Stratt as an aggressively logical and utilitarian woman. However, the film either plays into her ruthlessness for humor or softens her character rather than exploring the reality of this power dynamic. It glosses over the moral weight of Stratt’s actions — a global suspension of human rights — missing the opportunity for the audience to question whether her power is really necessary for human survival.
This lack of edge becomes most apparent when Grace remembers that he was sent to the mission against his will. In a flashback, it is revealed that an accident killed one of the original astronauts who intended to go on the mission. Grace refuses to take his spot, only to be forcibly drugged and launched on the mission by Stratt. As Grace eventually saves humanity and finds his happiness, the narrative frames this situation as the price to pay for the greater good, sidestepping the question about how Grace’s agency was taken.
Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014), another notable space film, captures the heavy emotional cost of a pilot choosing to leave his family for decades. Project Hail Mary, on the other hand, avoids the darker reality of sending a man to his death with a small chance that he might save humanity. Having seen both, it’s hard to ignore how Project Hail Mary does not fully flesh out this serious plot point.
The film also slips up in tying some of the loose ends of its world-building. Although we know that Grace’s success is necessary to save humanity, we never fully see the true societal decay that the Earth experiences from global cooling, and therefore can never fully understand the world that required Grace to be sent into space. The film tries to emphasize Grace’s role as a teacher by ending with a scene of Grace teaching alien children, cheapening the film’s high stakes with sentimentality.
While it may shy away from the grittier consequences of its premise, Project Hail Mary ultimately succeeds in getting us to understand the power of the human and non-human spirit. It serves as a reminder that our capacity for empathy and social connections makes us incredibly powerful beings. Ryland Grace may have been a “failure” initially, but he ultimately proves that true bravery simply requires the courage to keep asking questions.
