Project Hail Mary Review

Project Hail Mary Review

(Warning: some spoilers)

First of all, let me say how much I loved this movie. The soundtrack is great, and they use music in such key places for strong impact and roping you back in to all the trials Ryan Gosling, playing Ryland Grace, has to go through. The shots were incredible—peak cinema—stylistic, and even shots from the alien’s perspective.

By the way, they have an alien in this movie, which isn’t quite a spoiler since they teased it in the trailer. The alien, “Rocky,” was such a well-done creature. Slightly anthropomorphized, they gave him human emotions, but he is also very distinct in his own alien characteristics. There are so many precious moments between the two.

Early in the movie, you learn that Grace is a “disgraced” scientist and is laughed at for his theory on beings that do not require water to sustain life. He’s given the opportunity to prove his theory on an organism that comes from a red beam coming from the sun to the earth, known as the “Petrova Line.” It turns out that it is a solar-consuming microbe they name astrophage—a solar-energy-consuming, interstellar microbe. It can withstand the sun, but is still water-based.

They never mention his theory again in the movie, but I couldn’t help but wonder if that was put in as a little Easter egg. No one mentions it again, but “Rocky” is named for his stone body makeup. It made me think maybe his theory was correct after all, despite it never being acknowledged.

Rocky hums to speak and sings his race’s names. He also uses puppets to communicate that he builds out of his species’ metal, “xenonite.” Rocky loves puppet shows, as is shown in the movie, and frankly, so does the author.

It sounds silly, but all of this is established very well—their relationship. From their first encounter, where Rocky uses puppetry and coos to soothe Ryan’s character, to the moment he trusts Rocky, and they’re able to make real progress using their different intelligences in an effort to save their worlds from the astrophage draining their suns.

(Major Spoiler)

A big realization comes late into the film. The movie is set in a series of flashbacks leading up to how Grace wakes up to find himself on a ship in space with a dead crew.

You discover that the main character never wanted to sacrifice himself in the pursuit of saving the world. When called upon, he tried to run and was roofied onto the ship. Now you see that his struggles have all possibly been for his own desperate self-preservation, and even though he says he has come to terms with it, you’re not quite sure if he really has. There is quite a character arc for him, and it’s pretty satisfying. He starts out afraid of almost everything, moves to brave self-sacrifice, and in the end, Grace receives grace for his self-sacrifice.

The Major Flaw

As peak cinema as this movie was, the film seems to me to worship demos—the people—what mankind can accomplish together and our ability to overcome. A powerful narrative, but one that should direct us to give thanks to God for His common grace to bring us into an age of such cooperation and advancement.

Grace, very concerned with his own mortality, asks his possible love interest if she believes in God. She doesn’t answer, he laughs it off, and changes the subject. It seems to me today that because we are so technologically advanced, we forget there is nothing new under the sun. We forget God is always pioneering a new world, always expanding into a new world.

I really like Out of the Silent Planet. In it, Ransom, the main character, says:

He had read of “Space”: at the back of his thinking for years had lurked the dismal fancy of the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness, which was supposed to separate the worlds. He had not known how much it affected him till now—now that the very name “Space” seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it “dead”; he felt life pouring into him from it every moment. How indeed should it be otherwise, since out of this ocean the worlds and all their life had come? ... No: space was the wrong name. Older thinkers had been wiser when they named it simply the heavens—the heavens which declared the glory of God.

It gives an image of how God could have created new worlds, that still fall into His overarching narrative of redemption for the world. Lewis would write suppositional, rather than allegorical, worlds—worlds that fall under the same moral laws and that relate to our world’s true narrative. Take The Chronicles of Narnia. The world is still as it is, but there’s another world that still has need for the same bravery as called on us in this one. This is where catharsis in films really comes from.

Stories don’t need to be propagandistic; they just need to reflect the true world as best they can—good triumphing over evil, lying is bad, righteousness is good, and the glory goes to God.

The major flaw is it doesn’t give credit to the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

Another uncomfortable moment was when they were trying to normalize suicide for the crew. They had ways in which they were going to kill themselves after their journey. So strangely nihilistic. A common myth is that God and science cannot coexist, but to the contrary, scientists began their inquiries with the presupposition that if we come from a reasonable God, we can understand the world through reason.

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.”

Isaiah 1:18

Final Thoughts

As it stands right now, it’s in the running for Best Picture, soundtrack, and cast, but movies like Dune 3 and Avengers: Doomsday are set to come out this year. If Dune 3 pulls off another hit, and lands the plan on this trilogy, It's likely t0 sweep everything, except for maybe 'best lead actor". Timothee Chalamet, has done excellent character work in all the movies I've seen and heard about him in. However the industry pass him up for Goslings seniority. However, Hollywood may wish to push a movie with less Christian themes, and pick Dune for its false messiah narrative.

Other things I liked

Karaoke moment with the Russian lady is brilliant and powerful.

Grace freaks out on Rocky, apologizes, they make up and mimic one another.

Rock creature has feelings, it makes the story work.

Discovery of new things and naming them.

Pacing is a good balance between long tension and pep,

Uses music very sparingly

Other things I disliked

He believes self sacrifice is dumb.

Rock creature has feelings, it makes the story work.

Woman has to force him up into space.