Project Hail Mary

20

Did they hire Ryan Gosling because he has the same initials as his character, Ryland Grace? Or is that a complete coincidence? Or did the book’s author, Andy Weir, write his novel with Gosling in mind? These are the things that enter my head so as to not have to actually review the content of this film. Because I’m confused by the whole “hard sci-fi” thing. Are dopey, little rock aliens “hard?” Was Aliens In the Attic hard sci-fi with its cute aliens and whatnot? I mean just because you throw around the word “xenon” and “astrophage” doesn’t mean that the science is real or believable or that cutesy aliens are a thing. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy this movie, but I found the tone of it to be confusing. Watching Gosling act against a rock puppet for a couple hours just didn’t engender the tension and stakes that I assume the novel meant to project. Of course, I didn’t read the novel, so maybe it too was a buddy comedy between a kind of goofy guy and his sedimentary marionette friend. Or maybe Lord & Miller can’t help themselves, and everything needs to be winking and unserious. Funny, sure, but not exactly weighty. Despite the threat being the end of the world. Or worlds.

Now, I will not pretend to be a scientist. I think I got a D in physics in high school and foolishly took physics again in college and may have managed a C. So I will just assume everything in this film is spot-on and totally realistic science-wise. Speculative, for sure, but plausible. Because, again, I might have skated by with a C+ in college bio after absolutely massacring my fetal pig and pretty much never going to lab. And while I clocked and followed the “science” here, it could be total b.s. and I’d have no idea. Microbes that eat the sun. That’s what I took away from things. And therein is the crux of the tension in this film. At least the big bad. Little microscopic doodads that swallow the sun’s energy in a way that is dimming the sun and will eventually dim it to the point that in 30 years everyone on Earth will either freeze or starve to death because the sun is important for everything. Got it. But, hey, there’s a planet out there — way out there — that is seemingly unaffected by this whole sun-dimming thing. So let’s put some people on a suicide mission rocket to figure out why that is. Again, I think I mostly have this right.

Enter our protagonist, Ryland Grace (Gosling), who is currently a goofy, but clearly well-loved school teacher. Trope on trope, he used to be a big deal in the molecular biology community, but his wacky ideas were just too wacky for the establishment and he found himself on the outside. Now being forced to make dioramas for middle schoolers. And then trope on trope on trope, the government, desperate for an answer to the Earth’s impending doom, digs up some of his old research that seemed crazy at the time, but is now totally relevant to the current situation. So they come calling to proposition him for this assignment. Luckily, Grace seems to be totally unattached. Yes, Ryan Gosling is a total bachelor loser. No pets. No girlfriend / wife. No family. No pets, even. Which, even beyond the science, stretches credulity. This guy, who looks like Ryan Gosling, and seemingly has a pretty affable and open personality, has absolutely no life whatsoever. He goes to the little classroom, teaches and goes home and Puddys for a few hours and then goes to sleep. Right. But this whole solitary life is what apparently encourages the head of this whole suicide mission to kidnap Grace after he’s already said no to the mission and throw him on the ship against his will anyway. Because there’s nothing like a guy with out-there ideas, who is apparently very anti-social and has no interest in your one-way-ticket mission, joining a small team to save the universe. Again, this seems antithetical to how things should and would work. But it’s a movie, so logic be damned.

The issue is, when Grace wakes up from cryosleep, the rest of his team is dead. So, here he is on a missions he had no interest in being on, floating millions of miles from home all alone. And, mind you, he is a biologist. No an astrophysicist or computer engineer or chemist or pilot. All things that you’d think would be needed to both pilot the ship, fix shit on the ship and basically compliment Grace’s lack of those skillsets. And he has amnesia. Which can’t be good. I feel like the novel explains this whole thing, but the movie kind of ignores some of the details around his training and how he is able to pilot the ship, manage a program he’s not been completely read into and gradually overcome his amnesiac thing. But we are essentially set up with the sterotypical Cast Away plot. Or, more appropriately, the The Martian plot. With some definite Interstellar overtones. Man stuck on (or near) far-away rock with only some tools and his brain to survive. Clearly Andy Weir chas his thing. But, yeah, there’s a dude and he’s so completely alone and has to MacGyver a bunch of stuff together to try to get himself home or save the planet(s). Or try to do both of things, despite the fact getting home was never a real option.

But, unlike Matt Damon, Gosling gets a pal when a cute rock alien shows up. And this is where I imagine you lose some of the audience. I’m not saying this thing is a Fraggle, or like a creature from the The Dark Crystal, but there is certainly some Jim Henson stuff going on here. Some childish stuff that, to me, makes this thing almost veer into kids’ movie territory. This alien, whom Grace nicknames Rocky (James Ortiz), has definite Groot energy. Though Grace manages to give voice to this alien through a translation program on his laptop. Which, as an ongoing gag, is pretty funny at times, but definitely doesn’t feel at all logical in terms of how it functions. I suppose giving personality to a spidery rock creature with no face was a challenge, and the writers and director manage to do that, but that computer app (and his laptop’s amazing microphone and speakers) Grace spins up out of nowhere is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Putting aside my nit-picky nonsense, I was as engrossed in the relationship between the two buddies as I could possibly be, as together they try to solve the issue plaguing both their planets. Again, anthropomorphizing a rock is tough, but the same way I might care for a dog (like another Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 character, Cosmo the Spacedog), I learned to care about Rocky and somehow was effected by his (their?) peril and care for his Earthling friend. Damn you!

But this doesn’t mean my mind didn’t continuing to flag how goofy this whole thing is. It made me think of old Disney movies like The Black Hole or things without a face we’re supposed to treat as though they have human characteristics. Or anything with marionettes. Mixed with that glib, cheeky thing that the more comedic Marvel movies do. I don’t know, something about the film’s attitude worked against it for me. Yet I am a bit of a sucker for a buddy flick. Even when one of them is a mute rock. But, yeah, once we start up with this whole relationship, it feels more like a bunch of vignettes rather than a cohesive film. Figuring stuff out. Trying it. Failing. Putting themselves in danger. Triumphing. Failing again. All in this dark ship. It’s fun in spurts, but doesn’t add up to much as a whole. Or at least goes pretty much exactly where you expect it to go. And, frankly, want it to go. Which adds to my feeling that this is a kid’s movie. Because it has that Disney cadence, plot beats and upbeat ending that you know you’ll get because there is no subversion of our expectations in those types of tales. I think they do about as well as can be expected with the emotional end of things — because even fairytales can invoke emotion if done correctly — but the actual ending does indeed feel a fairytale. Too clean and too G-rated. Too sunny and very Ewok-Yub-Nub-celebration coded. To be fair, I do think my brain has been broken by modern, adult entertainments and the general darkness that surround them. I get that people like happy endings. I get they don’t want to need to see a world in chaos end in more chaos. But it also doesn’t mean I need neat and tidy or adorable in my films about the fate of everything.