Project Hail Mary

An amnesiac astronaut (Ryan Gosling) awakens on a spaceship and has to piece together not only his recent past but also the world-saving mission he’s supposed to be on, in this thrilling and heartwarming sci-fi adventure. But he soon finds help in the unlikely form of a small silicon-based alien who’s as cute as a Muppet and as clever as Albert Einstein, and their relationship soon paraphrases Bertrand Russell’s remark that the only thing that will redeem intelligent life is co-operation.

The film trudges so accurately in the heavily-booted footsteps of 2015’s brilliant The Martian that not only do the two films share a writer (Oscar-nominated Drew Goddard), not only are they both adapted from a novel by Andy Weir, but also they’re peppered with witty yet scientifically rigorous dialogue that balances the competing demands of comedy and drama with the same urgency as the need to counter the Solar System’s mortal threat.

Judging by the amusingly haphazard way the writers articulate first contact with an alien lifeform, in a scene that sometimes goes full slapstick, their primary theme seems to be: “Well yeah, humans are a bit rubbish really. But hey – at least we’re trying!” This is a much more emotionally engaging message than would be heard through the pompous noise of much big-budget Hollywood science fiction.

But most interestingly of all, both book and script interweave the events that led to the mission with the main plot, introducing a mystery that Gosling needs to solve in the name of completing his arc. Barring a few dropped stitches in the overall structure, together he and we discover the extraordinarily long shot the human race is taking, as well as the ethical implications of its utilitarian boldness.

On Earth, the metaphorical power of a dying sun (it’s being eaten alive by microorganisms called ‘astrophages’) limits how wide cinematographer Greig Fraser can open his aperture, giving it the sense of ending in a whimper rather than a bang. During his preliminary experiments, Gosling is isolated in close-up while the other characters are ranged opposite him in the middle distance, quietly retreating in unconscious preparation for his lonely adventure.

Twelve light-years away, there are epic shots of the awesome majesty of space, but they’re immediately contrasted with the human response to them, whether it be wonder or terror. The Hail Mary spacecraft itself has a bland, ‘used future’ aesthetic that grounds the action in something at least vaguely familiar, although that’s scant consolation to our reluctant hero as he stumbles around marvelling at the muscle memory that allows him to work the controls.

As if to wake the audience from his mildly terrifying dream, editor Joel Negron uses such transitional tricks as aspect ratio changes and blurred focus effects to delve into the memories Gosling is having trouble accessing. He also throws in microscopic montages of his fragmented past, the folks back home reduced to nucleotides in the double-helix of his mind.

While it would be too much to say that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller direct the whole thing as a comedy, they’re certainly not afraid to express plot breakthroughs and big ideas in the form of a punchline, either verbal or visual. Between the crisp editing and lived-in performances, they give the story a pace that belies its weighty runtime, and a feeling of camaraderie rather than forced, empty humour.

Of course Ryan Gosling has the acting chops to convey the cosmic isolation he’s ensnared by, but his combination of intelligence and vulnerability ensure that he can carry the emotional weight piled upon him during the solo part of his journey. But on the comedy side, there are shades of Peter Venkman in his tendency to insolent ripostes and his ability to not mind looking silly as well as smart.

Sandra Hüller is a splendid foil for Gosling, her Teutonic candour cutting right through his shambolic self-doubt, but she is also the sad repository of a secret so painful it can’t be revealed until deep into the third act. Meanwhile, Rocky the alien is brought delightfully to life by a CGI-shunning team of puppeteers and an ingenuous vocal performance from James Ortiz that calls to mind the robot friend from 2022’s equally tearjerking Brian And Charles.

Despite dropping the odd hint of existential loneliness you might recognise from ‘harder’ SF classics like Moon or 2001: A Space Odyssey, Project Hail Mary is more interested in bringing people together then putting more psychological distance between us than there is already. It’s a crowd-pleasing and at times genuinely wondrous mixture of scientific curiosity and human warmth, speaking a common language of optimism in the hope of rising above the din of a real world desperate to destroy itself.

-Stew Mott-