On March 20th, the film adaptation of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary hit theaters. A couple weeks later, the Artemis II completed their historic 10 flyby mission to the moon, the first trip to the moon since 1972. There is an oddly beautiful synergy in watching Ryland Grace save humanity on an IMAX screen while receiving live updates from the Artemis II crew flying to the dark side of the moon.
Within this renewal of optimism, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street), craft a heartwarming tale that redefines the science fiction trope.
The film begins with Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, a humorous molecular biologist and middle school science teacher, who wakes up alone on a ship in deep space with no recollection of how he got there. He spends the first couple of days drinking and snooping through his dead crewmates’ belongings. Through fragmented flashbacks the audience and Grace learn his purpose: to research and find a solution to save Earth against a sun-eating microorganism known as the Astrophage. On his journey, he meets an alien space ship and befriends an alien engineer whom he names Rocky. Soon, the two forge an unlikely friendship as they both attempt to save their homes from the same threat.
The show’s focal point is the cute friendship between Grace and Rocky. Similar to the methods used by fictional linguist Dr. Louise Banks in Arrival to communicate with Heptapods, Grace effectively communicates with Rocky, a non-humanoid that communicates using musician chords. However, where Dr. Banks gains a nonlinear perception of time, Grace and Rocky gain an invaluable companion during lonely times. Grace teaches Rocky human concepts like a “fist bump” which Rocky repeats as “fist my bump.” And in a groundbreaking discovery, they use the Taumoeba, a microbe that eats Astrophage, to solve the threat of the extinction of their planets. It is in this relationship where Project Hail Mary differs from the rest of the science-fiction canon. Most modern sci-fi media approaches the world-ending trope with cynicism and sacrificial missions, but Lord and Miller chooses to shy away from this approach and distracts us from the impending doom with comedy and a genuine connection.
In a world of existential dread, Project Hail Mary is an outlier. It is a film that balances heavy scientific topics while still appealing to all ages. This big-budget spectacle shows that curiosity and connection are the ultimate tools in unraveling the secrets of the universe.
