FILM REVIEW
PROJECT HAIL MARY
Rated PG-13
156 Minutes
Released March 20th
This is an epic journey, with only two characters on screen through most of the film. One of them is an alien whose appearance is somewhere between rock and spider. Throughout this mythic tale, there is very little dialogue, and that makes it more intimate and powerful. Nothing distracts us from the isolated vessel in which we find ourselves.
An important part of this environment is the melodic soundtrack, flowing with emotional chords and passages. Composer Daniel Pemberton made this happen beautifully with varied styles that enhance the striking views of the cosmos surrounding the ship.
Time is suspended in this movie. It becomes a non-entity. Life plays out moment by moment rather than in a linear flow for “Ryland Grace,” played by Ryan Gosling, who is suspended in space in a quiet vastness. The movie creates this environment and draws you into it. The visuals are highly original and creative, not copies of other sci-fi worlds, and the situation, unimaginable as it may be, is built on believable circumstances.
The concept is valid, that the sun is dying due to a sort of planetary infection, like a cancer in human terms, and someone must go to a far galaxy to find out why a star there has become immune to the same effect. If you think the premise of this movie is far-fetched, consider an actual headline from March 23rd, which read, “A ‘completely bonkers’ change in the appearance of a distant star may be the result of a collision of exoplanets.”
Grace is a high school science teacher whose career as a researcher was derailed because of his controversial theory about extraterrestrial life. We learn that his greatest strength is his ability to solve problems creatively with sharp ingenuity. Another strength is the ability to face loneliness, which is brought to the forefront early in the film. All these elements appear in our lives on Earth.
There are some hilarious scenes when Grace awakes from an induced years-long coma on the spaceship, and his body barely works. His functions are still asleep. Gosling contorts his body hilariously and stumbles around trying to get his nerves and muscles on the same page.
The courage to face loneliness and the power of friendship come into play here. They become more important than time. This is not your usual storyline, wrapped up in a tight package with a big bow. The narrative mirrors the concept. Things aren’t always explainable in everyday terms. You suspend time, suspend beliefs, suspend your expectations of environment and routine. The degree of difficulty in smoothly pulling off the immense and detailed optics of this movie is as mind-bending as are the film’s concepts.
The movie is based on Andy Weir’s novel of the same name. Weir started his career as a computer programmer, and his first novel was a sci-fi story that he posted on his personal blog. His friends loved it, so he put it on Kindle at the price of 99 cents. That novel was “The Martian.” It sold 35,000 copies and attracted an agent and a book deal, eventually becoming a now-classic 2015 movie starring Matt Damon. Weir is a space nerd with an interest in relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned space flight. The sci-fi worlds he creates are founded in scientific research.
Directors Phil Lord and Christoper Miller had been working with Weir on another project, which was shelved in favor of Project Hail Mary. They work as a team and have directed 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, and two Spider-Man movies.
Gosling is perfect for the role of Grace. He makes you feel like you are experiencing, feeling, and touching everything along with him. That might be because he is familiar with being alone. His family moved around a lot during his childhood, and he was often homeschooled, so Gosling is not afraid of loneliness or quiet. He is able to reach out alone, directly to the audience.
The only other character throughout most of the movie is “Rocky,” a being from a far planet, who blends characteristics of a boulder, an insect, and a comedian. Rocky is brought to life by puppeteer James Ortiz, whose previous experience is as a skilled stage puppeteer in Broadway productions.
In this movie, Gosling’s Grace represents any one of us. He doesn’t set out to save the world; he is thrown into the role. His superpower is that when faced with a problem, he does not give up on finding the answer, even when confronting repeated failure. We can identify with him, and we respect his practical use of intelligence.
See this movie on IMAX if you can, but I can attest that it is awesome on a regular screen. It’s not a stupendous firework of special effects. The spatial imaging that communicates the vastness of the universe is much simpler than in most films that depict the realms beyond our planet’s atmosphere.
So really, what makes this movie work so well that it is drawing in word-of-mouth audiences worldwide? It’s the “KISS -Keep It Simple Stupid” rule and the realism that the directors, writers, and actors achieve in an unreal environment.
Stay for the end credits. You will see the extraordinary work of astrophotographer Rod Prazeres, who has set up a camera in his backyard to capture real deep-space images. Production contacted him via Instagram message with a request to use his photos.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
