Project Hail Mary
Maybe I actually do love space sci-fi movies.
Get your time off ready, get your hearts ready, and get yourself ready to maybe become obsessed with what you’re about to see on screen. Because Project Hail Mary is something special.
The overall story states that our planet is facing a catastrophic extinction in the next 30 years because the Sun is dimming, thanks to a microorganism known as Astrophage, which feeds on the Sun’s energy. The actual story kicks off with us finding school teacher and doctor Ryland Grace on the Hail Mary spaceship, somewhere in another galaxy, with the rest of the crew dead and him suffering from amnesia, not remembering how he even got there.
While the film fills in his story through flashbacks, Dr. Grace, out of pure desperation, goes on an unforgettable space journey, meets alien life that he names Rocky, and, no big deal, tries to save his planet while Rocky is trying to save his.
On paper, this sounds simple. Not the first and definitely not the last space odyssey about heroes, saving planets, and aliens. But Project Hail Mary somehow manages to feel special. And the paradox of why it works is that it simplifies what should be simple and complicates what should be complicated. Because of that, the film feels incredibly balanced and hits your emotions in very different ways, but always strongly.
Against the backdrop of a pretty standard space story, we basically get one main character carrying the entire film, and we go through a very complex and emotional journey with him. Every space movie cliché is flipped and used in a way that doesn’t feel like déjà vu or irritation, but instead turns into very pleasant nostalgia. The story moves smoothly, evenly, and never drags. Whenever there’s too much of Ryan Gosling and his alien friend on screen, we get flashbacks with other characters. Whenever the story needs momentum, it shifts — either with a new turn or with an emotional arc that actually starts building already in the middle of the film, not just at the end.
A big part of that is the bromance between Dr. Grace and this small rock-like alien named Rocky, who instantly become clock bros (you’ll get it when you see it). It also opens up the story in a very nice way: there’s no epic for the sake of epic, no main character trying to be Superman, no scary aliens trying to destroy Earth. The “villain” here is just a natural process, and the alien turns out to be a good guy from the start — and honestly, an incredible creation that I’m sure people will go crazy over this year. Merch, references, awards, ads — it’s going to be everywhere.
And yeah, it sounds like a simple trick: make a weird creature, call it an alien, give it cute traits, and people will fall in love. But when it works, it really works. And here, it works. It never feels like a forced attempt to manipulate your emotions.
As for the cast — yes, Sandra Hüller is great, no questions there. But this is Ryan Gosling’s show. Most of the film is basically his solo performance. And oh boy, does he deliver. Gosling has had a lot of amazing roles, but right now it really feels like this could become his defining one. He captures desperation, a kind of delusion, the attempt to be a good person, someone who feels things, someone so open to the unknown that he basically forms not just contact, but a real bond with an alien in like ten minutes. And somehow, he makes you believe in that connection with something that, from the outside, looks like just a piece of rock. Watching the film, I genuinely couldn’t imagine anyone else in this role.
And of course, a huge part of the experience is how the film looks. They say it was shot without green screen, and oh my god, it looks expensive. I never thought I’d say this, but you can actually see where that $200 million budget went. Every frame feels like a piece of art. The film is so bright, so beautiful, so rich that you almost never feel like you’re watching something fictional.
In the end, Project Hail Mary turns out to be an incredibly heartfelt, warm, and kind film. It doesn’t try to be grand just for the sake of being grand. It’s actually a very small and human story set against something big, eternal, and unknown. And it reminds us that we also have something eternal — but something we understand. That’s friendship and the desire to be good people. What more could you ask for?
9/10
