Hail Mary…Full of Grace and Great Storytelling

Three things you should know before seeing Andy Weir’s 2021 novel-turned-film, Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling: one, Astrophage is a mysterious substance, similar to black mold, that both consumes and darkens the energy of stars like the Earth’s sun; two, a Petrova Line is an arc of infra-red light that can carry astrophage millions of light years; and, finally, Project Hail Mary is an absorbing sci-fi “dramedy” that spares nothing in the celebration of brilliant visual effects, production design, and editing, all while keeping tight reins on a theme that proves relevant and a storyline wonderfully rewarding.

Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher whose thesis on molecular biology apparently had offended his doctoral advisors by defying accepted science. Even his young students are aware that the sun outside is losing energy, a classroom discussion about which puts Grace’s learned answers at odds with what the school may approve. Cut forward to Grace awakening on a spaceship to the slow discovery that his two companions, the pilot and engineer, are dead and that he is alone. Flashback to Grace remembering he had been kidnapped after school by a team of CIA-like agents whose commander, Dr. Eva Stratt (played cooly by Sandra Hüller), needs Grace’s very expertise in studying the astrophage that has been carried on Petrova lines to the planet Venus. 

Jump forward to Grace explaining exactly what his experiments have proven about the properties, values and dangers of astrophage; contained tightly, it can be used as space fuel, but exposed to light it will seek to multiply and wreak havoc on solar energy anywhere in the universe. Apparently, a team of astronauts are preparing to launch a spaceship named Hail Mary. Cut to a montage of Grace biding his time alone on that lonely spaceship. Jump back to a scene in a karaoke bar where Dr. Stratt amazes her farewell party of astrophysicists, including Grace, with a sultry voice that is surprisingly beguiling. Cut—well, some time in between—to Grace being introduced to a large conference of esteemed, international scientists unanimous in their decision to finance a suicide mission to the star Tau Ceti, the singular sun known not to be affected by astrophage. The space mission will collect the likely “antitoxin” to be discovered there, but can afford only small probes to return the necessary vials to Earth.

That’s more exposition than any twenty episodes of CSI:NY combined, but directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller do incredible honor to Andy Weir’s sci-fi set-up as well as to the intelligence of audiences who need only know the Mandalorian is just a bounty hunter, for example, to enjoy the popular Star Wars spin-off. Weir, if you didn’t know, also wrote the successful novel-turned-film The Martian which starred Matt Damon.

Of course, trailers for Project Hail Mary reveal that Ryan Gosling meets up with an alien that looks and acts something like a cross between a rock and a spider. Rocky, as Grace eventually names him, is also a lone figure in space; his crew, too, has died, leaving him to fend for himself. Both characters are doomed, yet each has a mission still to fulfill. 

Although well-hinted in earlier scenes, the theme of Project Hail Mary explores the idea of what it may feel like to learn that we, whether human or alien, are in every way expendable. It’s a theme the film explores in very clever ways through abject loneliness, longing, and heartbreaking loss. Yet, in many ways, too, the film is a comedy; Gosling’s patter, his character’s comic observations—even his companion’s understanding of the rules of English—lift the story well beyond a morbid tale of impossible salvation. Indeed, the movie has many emotional highs and lows, but all are well balanced to elicit a few good cries and some beaming smiles.

Spoiler Alert? At 156 minutes, it’s a long movie. Knowing that fact in advance may not help when, after the first hour and a half, Hail Mary seemingly reconciles its characters to their fate, gives us a slight plot twist, and then resolves that purpose to pleasing effect. At this point, audiences may wonder if the screenwriters don’t know exactly how to end their story. But worry not. Could the film benefit from a tighter edit? Maybe. But why? Where we land is exactly where we want to be. 

Ryan Gosling is wonderfully watchable in this space dramedy that is essentially a one-man show. But Sandra Hüller as Dr. Eva Stratt deserves recognition for making her important, but brief role intriguingly multi-layered. Lionel Boyce as Officer Carl turns in a good character, too. And while audiences may not bother to read all of the trailing credits, Rocky is performed, animated, and puppeteered principally by James Ortiz, yet credit is also due his five additional “Rockyteers.” 

Project Hail Mary may promise to take us “where no man has gone before,” but its massive success, well deserved, comes from stitching together an epic tale that draws on the very best elements of storytelling.

C. Prentiss Orr is a Pittsburgh-based writer who covers film, live theater, and other topics for Entertainment Central. He is the author of the books The Surveyor and the Silversmith and Pittsburgh Born, Pittsburgh Bred.

Share on Social Media