*Editor’s Note: This review contains minor spoilers
“Project Hail Mary” is a new, unpredictable and touching space film about adventure, bravery and what we are willing to do for the people we love.
Ryan Gosling’s character, Dr. Ryland Grace, is a public school science teacher who is widely hated in the field of microbiology for his strong, unwavering theories. Grace is selected unexpectedly by the world’s governments to assist in a scientific exploration of why the universe’s stars are dying. He finds himself on the Hail Mary, a shuttle sent to space to investigate the organisms that are killing the stars, even though he is extremely adamant on not being an astronaut.
Project Hail Mary stands as the highest rated film of Gosling’s career at an astonishing 95% rating, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Therefore, I entered the theater with extremely high expectations, and I was not disappointed.
The main event of this film is the visual effects. There were various moments in the theater where my jaw was agape and I sat in complete awe with the rest of the moviegoers. Lingering lightshows of stars and visualized infrared light left many viewers, including myself, with tears in their eyes in reaction to the sheer beauty.
This is a movie that needs to be seen in theaters. No home TV can fully bring to justice the visual glory, the exciting soundtrack or the moments of deafening silence this film has to offer.
Various moments in the film hung on for a few extra moments to allow for the full effect to shine through. There have been times while watching movies that I felt as though scenes hung on for a second too long, but with “Project Hail Mary,” I found myself wanting more from almost every scene.
The emotional themes of this movie were just as out of this world as the Hail Mary spacecraft. Grace is a person with no one to worry about him except for his students. He has no partner, seemingly no friends and no immediate family, but after his adventure, he discovers what it means to feel loved and to love another. By the end of the film, we can see a clear distinction between being willing to die for someone, and wanting to live for them.
Gosling was not the only star of this movie. Rocky, an extremely loveable alien companion to Grace, stole the show. We meet Rocky when his ship enters the radar of the Hail Mary, and eventually is able to communicate with Grace. We learn that Rocky and Grace are on the same mission and have ended up alone in that endeavor, as both of their whole crews died during their mission.
With his broken speech patterns and his excitable personality, Rocky warmed audiences hearts and absolutely devastated them all at once when in a moment of desperation, he faced what would typically be certain death in order to save the life of his friend.
One small thing I appreciated about this film was how comprehensive the writers made such complex scientific themes seem to viewers. I am no astrophysicist, but I felt almost capable of being in the Hail Mary space ship right beside Grace.
By the time the credits were rolling, I had tears welling in my eyes and Letterboxd opened on my phone. “Project Hail Mary” easily earned a 5 out of 5 stars and a spot on my personal list of top 3 movies.
