As a high school film teacher, I often joked with my English department colleagues about how little I read. They’d say things like, “the book is so much better than the movie,” to which I’d craft a rebuttal along the lines of, “the book can’t be better than the movie if I never read the book.” In a rare case, I actually took the time to read—well, listen to—Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary about two months before the release of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s adaptation. I immediately became worried as the book quickly became a favorite, and I may have set myself up to fall into the emotional credo my friends in the English department swear by. Fortunately, after seeing the film, I can easily say the movie lives up to the book in every way.
Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up from a coma and finds himself on a spaceship with no recollection of why he’s there. This is more than just a convenient plot conceit, as it also helps frame the structure of the story. As his memories return, the audience is shown flashbacks that help fill in the gaps. Weir’s novel The Martian faced a similar challenge when your primary protagonist is alone for a majority of the runtime, so breaking up that dynamic with cutaways becomes necessary. While The Martian was focused primarily on one man’s survival, Project Hail Mary raises the stakes substantially: the survival of humanity on Earth.
Gosling is perfect casting for Ryland Grace. Minutes into the book, I could easily imagine Gosling’s performance style meshing with the character seamlessly. He brings an odd balance of self-deprecating humor and overconfidence seen in characters like Ken from Barbie, Holland March in The Nice Guys, and Colt Seavers in The Fall Guy. While I love all of those performances, Ryland Grace allows Gosling to flex his more dramatic muscles as well. There are moments of absolute fear, dread, and longing that require complex emotional responses, and Gosling delivers them expertly. It’s an incredible performance that should be at the top of the Oscar discussion by the end of the year.
The most challenging element to discuss with this film is also one of its best, but it feels like spoiling a major component to elaborate on it. The trailers—especially the most recent one—do not hide the fact that Ryland won’t be alone for the majority of the film despite the initial setup. Reading the book, this encounter and budding friendship feels designed to be an early story wrinkle—or even a twist—that changes the status quo of Weir’s grounded sci-fi approach. So, leaning away from what I feel could be a surprise for someone going in slightly blind, I’ll simply say that the buddy elements of the story, which were incredibly endearing while reading the book, may be even stronger cinematically. The dynamic pulls you in, propels the story forward, and makes this film feel like one for the ages.
The direction by Lord and Miller was something of a concern going into the film. While I’m a fan of both Jump Street films and The Lego Movie, and I saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs long ago, that pretty much concludes their directorial filmography. Of course, there is Solo: A Star Wars Story, which they were famously removed from and replaced by Ron Howard. That history raised concerns about how they would balance the tone here. It’s now easy to say that Project Hail Mary anoints them as masters and should warrant them the green light on any project moving forward.
Everything about this movie feels like what audiences should want from big Hollywood filmmaking. It’s bombastic, funny, sentimental, epic in scope, utilizes real sets far more than expected, deploys visual effects expertly, and creates powerful movie moments while never feeling slow—even at its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. The film could easily be held up as a model for what a five-star movie looks like in the modern era. While Weir deserves a ton of credit for crafting such a tale, it’s a true marvel that the book was adapted so perfectly for the big screen. There are plenty of great books with subpar movie adaptations. Far fewer exist where both the book and the movie deserve their respective places on our shelves.
There are other notable performances—primarily James Ortiz and Sandra Hüller—but Project Hail Mary is definitely a Ryan Gosling showcase. This is a film I could easily see revisiting multiple times in the theater. I truly hope this movie attracts an audience. While I don’t subscribe to the idea that box office equals quality, I also know that Hollywood speaks in dollars, and when a movie doesn’t rake those in, the wrong lessons are often learned. I would love to see more movies at this scale and quality get greenlit. I also want to see what Lord and Miller do next.
Project Hail Mary will be in IMAX and theaters on March 20.
Rating: 5/5 (DUH).
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