Film Review - PROJECT HAIL MARY
Images courtesy of Sony Pictures.
If space agencies and tech billionaires need to send Ryan Gosling to make first contact when humanity encounters alien life. Only he could make us look competent and willing to cooperate with others.
Based on the 2021 novel by author Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary begins with schoolteacher Ryland Grace (Gosling) waking up as the sole survivor on a spacecraft in a solar system that’s light-years away from our own. He eventually remembers that he was part of a crew selected to investigate why all the stars in the Milky Way, including Earth’s, are dying - except just one. Grace soon finds out that he’s not the only traveller looking to solve this problem.
In a film with such a bleak narrative setup, it’s amazing that Ryan Gosling, from the beginning, can hold the audience’s hand and make them feel at ease, and even encourage us to laugh at his situation. Gosling oozes his usual charm, goofiness and subtle sadness. He knows that Ryland Grace is supposed to be an everyman, and Gosling portrays him as exactly that, despite how frustratingly good he looks with glasses. Given that he spends three-quarters of the film as the only human on-screen, this is one of Gosling’s strongest performances and showcases all the aspects of his performance that audiences have come to love him for. If there had been no chemistry between Grace and his fellow traveller, then this adaptation would have failed. In a fit of relief for fans of the book, their dynamic flies off the pages and is reflected perfectly as the beating heart of Project Hail Mary. That is thanks to Gosling, as well as the practical and VFX teams behind bringing the traveller to life, with lead puppeteer and voice actor James Ortiz in charge of injecting the personality. Trust me, Rocky is perfect and must be protected.
Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the architects of the Spider-Verse franchise, have assembled a motley crew of experts in every department to release one of the most gorgeous and heartwarming sci-fi films of the 2020s. No doubt. When combined with Lord and Miller's trademark focus on humour, emotional relationships, and extreme detail in whatever genre they tackle, Project Hail Mary ultimately feels like the answer to the question, “What if Steven Spielberg had directed Interstellar?”
Meanwhile, Screenwriter Drew Goddard writes an adaptation as strong as his effort with The Martian, another Weir novel, years prior. It’s a script that keeps the book's story beats, humour, plot themes and fantastic set pieces intact. However, the film omits some of the book’s hardcore scientific and contextual details to accommodate Lord and Miller’s storytelling sensibilities. It doesn’t detract much from the film, but it’s definitely a shame for those who adore the novel for its hardcore scientific accuracy and detailed problem-solving.
When the audience is living in a crappy world with an even crappier near future on the horizon, Project Hail Mary is a warm hug fuelled with hope. That’s all it wants to be, and that’s not so bad at the end of the day.
PROJECT HAIL MARY is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.