Ryan Gosling stars as a reluctant astronaut on a wild ride to save the sun.
Project Hail Mary
Starring Ryan Gosling and Sandra Hüller
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Rated PG-13
In theaters Friday, March 20
Ryan Gosling is far out—far, far, far out—in this sweeping sci-fi space epic that heads to the edge of the universe before reaching down deep into your heart.
The La La Land star plays Ryland Grace, a middle-school science teacher who becomes a reluctant astronaut. “I put the not in astronaut,” he protests. But his resistance is for naught, as he’s…well, conscripted for a NASA mission to a distant solar system, nearly 12 light years away. His specific science smarts are needed to find out how to defeat a rapidly growing organism that’s gobbling up solar energy…from our sun as well as others. Unless it’s stopped, he’s told, in 30 years life on Earth will be over and out.
The mission is called Project Hail Mary, because it’s a desperate, deep throw into the cosmos, a fraught last chance at staying in the game of life. Acclaimed German actress Sandra Hüller (The Zone of Interest) has a significant role as the head of the project, back on Earth.
At one point, we get a glimpse of the mementos Grace has brought with him on the trip. One is a T-shirt from his teaching days with a play on the periodic table; it reads, “AH! The element of surprise.” There are several surprises in this splendidly engaging and wildly entertaining tale, including its generous seasoning of sly, spry humor. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller—collaborators on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Lego Movie, the Spider-Verse franchise, and 21 Jump Street and its sequel—certainly know how to sprinkle the wit around. Watch and listen closely to catch the nods to Alien, Close Encounters and an iconic franchise about a boxing champ, and the gal he’s fighting for.
But this mission’s secret weapon is Gosling, a truly versatile actor with an arsenal of likeability. Grace is shocked to discover, after his induced hibernation, that he’s the sole survivor of his spaceship’s crew. Then he comes across another space traveler, an alien who moves like a spider made of stone. Grace nicknames him Rocky—and learns that he’s also the lone survivor of his own mission to save his planet’s star from a slow death.
The core of the movie is the growing relationship between Grace and Rocky as they learn how to communicate and collaborate, becoming soulmates and friends in the process. Told in flashbacks as well as “real time,” there are twist and turns, thrills, elation and tears before it’s all over. Trust me when I say you might find yourself reaching for your hankie.
Project Hail Mary has the eye-popping scope, spectacle and scale of a modern-day 2001: A Space Odyssey, blended with the resonate emotional heft of ET. I particularly dug the music, from the ethereal soundtrack by award-winning British composer Daniel Pemberton to the well-chosen needle drops with songs of Harry Styles, The Beatles and Kris Kristofferson.
Movies have been going into space for well over a century, all the way back to the dawn of the 1900s and French filmmaker Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon. (Gosling himself starred, in 2018, as astronaut Neil Armstrong in First Man.) But Project Hail Mary is a modern standout, one of the first truly great, impressive films of the year, an uplifting assertion that we’re all in it together, no matter what corner of the sky we call home, that bravery—and friendship—can take many shapes and forms.
And that students anywhere—and I mean anywhere—would love to have Ryan Gosling as their supercool science teacher.
Project Hail Mary scores a movie touchdown.
—Neil Pond
The Media Tourist 