Project Hail Mary
Full of space
The best things on earth are dogs, and turned out the best things in space are space dogs. Who are also rocks, who are also scientists, who are also puppets.
Project Hail Mary is one of those rare films that, if you’ve read the book, you’d think, there is no way they can make this work. I mean, the book is largely just a human and a rock talking in a hallway, but thanks to the brilliant puppet work from James Ortiz as Rocky and an amazing performance from Ryan Gosling (Grace), Project Hail Mary, full of space, is a beautiful and surprisingly heartwarming film.
I think in part the film sings (as the book did) because it is, at its core, about an unlikely friendship overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In these harrowing days, where all one sees when one turns on the news are stories of division across the world. Where subtle differences are leveraged as reasons for fomenting hate, it’s comforting to see a tale about two vastly different beings working together. Especially when one of them is so dog-coded. (I cried the moment Rocky emerged on screen, because I just couldn’t stop thinking about how much I love my dog and how willing I would be to fly 11.3 light-years from Earth to save her.) Especially when so many of the sets were practical. There is a surprising tangibility to this film that, in the age of CGI, everything is deeply refreshing.
Through an unheavy-handed deployment of flashbacks (complete with cute sweaters and slutty glasses), Hail Mary artfully keeps the tension up throughout its 2-hour-30-minute runtime. Much of the long science sequences have been artfully cut from Drew Goddard’s screenplay and replaced with adorable comedy sequences, which counterbalance the tension deliciously.
