This is how you know The Hail Mary Project is a work of science fiction: It concerns the different nations of the Earth pooling together their resources and intelligence to deal with an apocalyptic problem—in this case, the pending death of the sun, due to a mysterious alien substance. The film, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, is based on Andy Weir’s novel published in 2021, when the world was facing the coronavirus pandemic; Intentionally or not, this book felt like a glimmer of hope for dealing with global chaos and discord. The on-screen adaptation is similarly inspiring, even hilarious—it suggests that an attitude of doing things with advanced technology may be enough to see humanity through disaster. (Ryan Gosling’s beaming smile and neatly braided hair are thrown in for good measure.)
Is that attitude ridiculous? Perhaps, but Lord and Miller, who previously created such exciting events 21 Jump Street and of Spider line series (which they wrote and produced), are viewers who dare to hope against hope. The Hail Mary Projectdespite its terrifying concept, is the Big Friendly Giant of a film, told on a grand scale and somewhat alarmingly long (156 minutes of space). It’s the kind of compelling, all-ages adventure that’s become increasingly rare in Hollywood: a story for adults that kids can also enjoy. Lord and Miller’s efforts here should be easy to decipher.
But The Hail Mary ProjectThe greatness of self-awareness sometimes gets in its own way. The loose script, which is sometimes filled with outrageous music and silly jokes—but the fun happens at a very high level, Interstellar-a space drama, with incredible visual effects and death-defying action sequences. The tonal mix is a difficult needle to thread, although threading that needle is essentially Lord and Miller’s expertise: They were able to invest emotion and credibility in the project as ironic tone. The Lego Movie without leaving any nonsense.
The directors’ insistence on maintaining a light-hearted tone to their story about the end of the world however sometimes sets my teeth on edge. I had to remind myself how much worse the vibe could be: Other filmmakers they have groped like the deceased by trying to undermine whatever big-budget yarn they’re spinning with self-referential shrieks and winks at the audience; it is as if they are ashamed of their source material. Lord and Miller are more prominent in the pragmatic and sophisticated nature of Weir’s storytelling. A novelist likes to present his characters with a seemingly intractable problem, then get them to roll up their sleeves and prepare to solve it with good old-fashioned scientific romance. Lord and Miller, along with Gosling—who stars as the one man who can save the Earth from certain death—are fiercely committed to that level of positivity.
Along those lines, it is interesting to compare The Hail Mary Project as well as another major adaptation of Weir’s novel, Ridley Scott’s Martian. The 2015 film saw Matt Damon play an astronaut who tries to use science from Mars, where he is struggling with little food or oxygen. Scott’s take was a little heavier on thrills and derring-do than Lord and Miller’s; Damon, though self-deprecating and charming, still had the demeanor of an action hero. Gosling, despite his chiseled jaw and prominent biceps, leans as far away from the situation as he can. He plays a molecular biologist turned middle school teacher named Dr. Ryland Grace, who finds himself alone on a spaceship when the story begins. He suffers from amnesia, and his memory comes to him in fragments, allowing the viewer to piece together with Grace how he came to be there. That approach makes him more like the audience—yes, we eventually learn that he’s an exceptional bacteriologist, but he figures it out slowly enough to be convincing as a lovable goof who still understands how all the buttons work.
Gosling is good at playing a running clown, of course. That talent is what made the flawed-but-fun Fall Man visible; why is that Nice Guys is one of the most underrated comedies of the 21st century. The Hail Mary Projectin fact, it can be called A man of good fortunebecause that’s what Gosling plays—Grace is just a regular Joe it happens looks like a Ken doll and has foolishly stumbled into being the savior of the Earth. I could have rolled my eyes (okay, I probably did a few times), but Gosling is talented enough to make the character believable enough. The flashbacks eventually coalesce into a backstory: Grace’s goal, he comes to remember, is to stop a type of alien that uses solar energy. An international government coalition sent him as part of a team to a distant star that seems to hold the key, and his colleagues died on the journey, leaving Grace on the planet – and, as she knows, the galaxy’s last hope.
Well, Grace and Rocky. Because while the film is essentially a one-man show for Gosling (Sandra Hüller does a solid job in retrospect as Grace’s but well-intentioned principal), he spends a lot of time acting alongside an alien friend named Rocky who is, well, made of rocks; think Baby Yoda, but mineral instead of animal. Rocky comes from a world that deals with the same issue, and for the most part The Hail Mary ProjectThe tension lies in this unlikely pair learning how to communicate and work together to fix things. The creature, an animatronic puppet, is almost too cute to work with; it’s surprising how many big-budget sci-fi movies require a cute little boy who is destined to be turned into a toy (Baby Groot also comes to mind). But if I congratulate The Hail Mary Project trying to be a good time for the whole family, maybe I shouldn’t get too Grinchy about this latest example.
That was my total takeaway The Hail Mary Project: Whenever Grace wore another t-shirt with a sad sound on it or thought about how to high five with her young friend, I had to stretch myself in my stupidest ribs. This film is not a masterpiece, its visual size sometimes suggests that it will be shot. Still, it’s occasionally entertaining, with a message that the viewing public can afford to hear—that we’re better off joining forces than fighting each other. The Hail Mary Project It says that solving problems is “for the sake of winning,” and who am I to argue with that right now?
