By Liam Jean Pierre and Leah Falcon
Warning: spoilers ahead
In damnation, we look for grace. In desperation, we look for miracles. In hopelessness, we can look for Project Hail Mary. Walking into the Neelsie Road House Cinema, we only had the raving reviews of others to justify a two-hour-and-37-minute film on a Tuesday. Our expectations were shattered. Project Hail Mary goes beyond its exceptional production, drawing out a giddy sense of wonder from even the most rock-hearted cynics through its balance of scientific grit and unexpected heart.
Ryan Gosling’s dedication to this role shines through in his performance. By balancing emotional reality with his stellar physical acting and charming awkwardness, Gosling wins the audience. Sourced from Amazon MGM Studios
The film revolves around Ryan Gosling’s character, Ryland Grace, a scientist with a doctorate in molecular biology, teaching middle school science. The film opens as he awakes from a coma in a spaceship. His fellow astronauts are dead. He is 11,9 light-years away from Earth. His mission: to find a solution to the micro-organism, Astrophage, which is eating the sun and will plunge Earth into an ice age within 30 years.
This premise would make for a fairly average sci-fi film. The average science-fiction equation being: imagined reality + plot revolving around the science of that reality. This film’s magic lies in its contrast to our reality. In our world, dystopian governments, selfish elites and anti-intellectualism movements reign. Project Hail Mary offers an alternative. An ethical individual searching for a science-backed solution and in the face of impending doom, the solution is found in connection. The reality the film envisages takes on the same wondrous quality as a Back to the Future hoverboard.
The message of this film only shines through thanks to the exceptional grounding in practical elements. Ryan Gosling fully committed to his role, spending nearly three months shooting in complete isolation. The team built, rotated and rebuilt the whole spaceship to accommodate filming different “gravities”. Rocky was a fully constructed puppet who could improvise with Gosling thanks to James Ortiz, Rocky’s voice actor, being in Gosling’s ear. This created genuine chemistry and gem moments such as Rocky’s reaction to Grace’s rant about his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend Mark, saying, “Rocky hate Mark.”
Daniel Pemberton’s soundtrack swung from thematic, choral pieces to Miriam Makeba’s “Pata Pata” in Project Hail Mary. However, the film found its heart in Sandra Hüller’s karaoke version of “Sign of the Times”. This might seem like a whiplash experience, but Pemberton moulds each track to its unique scene, enhancing the entire experience. Sourced from Amazon MGM Studios
Daniel Pemberton (responsible for the soundtrack of the Spiderverse movies) crafted Project Hail Mary’s magnetic score. His genius lay in his restraint, emphasising the palpable vacuum of space. This balanced feelings of isolation and emptiness with moments of wanderlust for space. A poignant moment in the film was Sandra Hüller’s karaoke version of “Sign of the Times”. Despite her minimal screen time, Hüller’s character commands each frame with her ice-cold pragmatism needed to save the species; yet, it is her song that breathes warmth into the story and wins her the undying support of many viewers.
The trajectory of success for space epics is often decided by their visuals and imagery. They are the primary tool used to translate the vast scale of the cosmos into sensation felt by the audience. Project Hail Mary’s balance of tactile shots and glassy space is thanks to Greig Fraser’s cinematography. His work safely lands it in the galactic halo alongside 2001: A Space Odyssey and Interstellar.
The tactile production design, expansive cinematography, and immersive soundscape coalesce to create an unforgettable experience. Ryland Grace’s journey is less a space-epic salvation of a species and more an intimate discovery of something – and someone – worth protecting. While the film indulges in the occasional hand-wavy science, it remains easily accessible, translating orbital mechanics and extraterrestrial linguistics into a shared language of curiosity.
We leave the cinema not just in awe of the cosmos, but shifted by the beauty of being alive and the optimistic realisation that even in the vast emptiness of space, no one truly has to be alone.
