Project Hail Mary review

 

Based on the novel by Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary is a tricky film to pin down. Part sci -fi odyssey, part environmental allegory, part charming if unconventional buddy flick, it travels as far as its main character does. Already being talked up as an Oscar prospect I would hesitate to place it quite so high yet it is hugely enjoyable, packed with imaginative vistas and tense scenarios. It is best seen on an IMAX screen where you, too, can travel to infinity and beyond.

Spoilers beyond this break

Molecular biologist Ryland Grace wakes up from cryogenic suspension on board a cramped spaceship somewhere in the Cosmos with no initial memory of how he got there and why he is there. He finds two fellow travellers have died and over the course of the first part of the movie pieces together his mission which is presented to us in a series of flashbacks which gradually fill in the blanks. Considering the implications Grace takes things rather well and it soon becomes clear that he must find a way to destroy alien microbes called Astrophage eating away at the Sun and threatening the future of Earth.

Despite such serious issues the tone is kept light, even frivolous at times yet pulled together by Ryan Gosling’s likeable character. Though he looks a bit too gym fit to be a sloppy scientist he is given chunky pullovers and glasses to make him seem the part.  As for the science, well as Elton John once memorably sang “All the science I don’t understand”. I suspect it may be a mixture of speculative and wholly fictional material as there is no real life microbe named Astrophage. Whatever it is we soon get the picture that Earth is at great risk unless a cure is found on a distant star that seems to be unaffected by this threat, at least as far as can be ascertained.

The narrative pivots with the arrival of an alien spaceship that looks like a modern art sculpture comprised of long copper coloured tubes and poles; definitely one of the most original designs for the genre. Aboard is another solitary passenger - a being who resembles a crab made out of rock who communicates by sharp noises and seems capable of generating metallic objects. Grace soon dubs him Rocky and tries to find ways for them to communicate and cooperate.  The two cannot breathe the same atmosphere – solved by some odd looking glass constructions—neither do they share a language. After a bit of keyboard tapping, Grace sorts this out (because movie scientists can do anything!) enabling Rocky’s `words` to be translated. The resulting syntax shenanigans provide some of the film’s broadest humour. At this point matters are ambling amiably along so you sort of forget the imminent dangers until the centrepiece thrills of a dangerous mission into the atmosphere of the alien star presented with kaleidoscopic wonder as Grace dangles perilously overhead.

He’s recently been Barbie’s Ken and a stunt man so its not difficult for Ryan Gosling to convince as a scientist. For this film to work we have to like it’s protagonists and he certainly exudes genial intelligence and curiosity. Considering it has no facial expression, Rocky – realised mostly by real life physical puppet and voiced by the main puppeteer James Ortiz - gives plenty of aura of his own and the unlikeliest duo forge a friendship overcoming dangers to help each other selflessly. It says something for how skilfully this plays out that the viewer soon stops seeing Rocky as an odd alien but as a character.

In the flashbacks, Sandra Huller impresses as Eva Stratt, an implacable German whom we imagine is exactly the sort of strict  project manager who warms to charm and at one point unexpectedly belts out  a Harry Styles song at a karaoke. A difficult character to read, her single mindedness shows when we  witness the way Grace is put on board the mission against his will after an unexplained explosion kills the biologist who should have gone. Moments like this do show a little contrivance, as does the way the other two astronauts perish on the way, though she plays it so well. You get a sense that there's conflict in her mind over what she is doing.

Of course someone like Grace could probably never survive the perils he does nor rustle up solutions way outside his field so easily were he not a movie star but you can’t begrudge that too much. Could he seem a bit more worried about everything? Maybe so and perhaps if there was someone back home waiting for him it might make the scene where he has to make a crucial choice more emotional than it is. The film does use video messages he records as a way of showing us Grace’s thoughts but these are never as illuminating as they could be.

The film is overlong, like a lot of movies carrying on past what would be a perfect ending yet the editing is sharp, easily skipping over the science bits yet wallowing warmly in the character work. It never belittles or mocks scientists and even if his solutions are a tad unbelievable the fact is that it is Grace’s intelligence that wins the day, a strong message to put across in an era when experts are often being disparaged and people would rather rely solely on search engines.

 It’s more of a family film than other `lone man in space` antecedents such as The Martian, Moon, Silent Running or 2001- A Space Odyssey. Despite the scenario it lacks their bite and with no family to worry about, Grace does not carry the same weight as characters in those films.  What it does share though it their aim to show the amazement of space and the inventive zeal of scientists to solve seemingly unsolvable woes. It has the astonished tenor of classic sci fi stories- you can easily imagine a scene where the two spaceships are docking being on the cover of a 1940s pulp magazine.  Project Hail Mary may lack the dramatic ballast or the pull from home to rank alongside sci fi classics yet it’s a wild, exciting ride and you will leave wanting a model Rocky to put on your shelf!