Project Hail Mary movie review: Ryan Gosling’s feel-good space film is fuelled by charisma and optimism

If you’re going to have a movie which is mostly a scientist in a space ship talking to and befriending a rock alien, you better cast Ryan Gosling.

The thrice-Oscar-nominated Canadian actor is one of the most charismatic people on screen, and charm and emotional heft is exactly what’s necessary to pull off, well, a hail Mary.

When a film is built almost entirely around one person, there is no where to hide. They’re it, if that performance is lacking or slack, it all falls apart.

In Project Hail Mary, it does not. It soars on the immense likeability of Gosling’s presence, working in perfect tandem with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller to create an incredibly crowd-pleasing film.

“Crowd-pleaser” and “feel-good” can sometimes be derisive terms, backhand compliments about movies which are designed to manipulate audiences as a cover for their shallow story and character beats.

Here, it’s not because there are real emotional and thematic stakes, and the feel-goodery of it comes from the fact it genuinely is a pleasurable, life-affirming film that believes in the best of people.

Maybe there’s something special about that in this present moment where anxieties big and bigger are piling up. A film that can give you a reprieve and leave you with a sense of optimism has great value.

Project Hail Mary is adapted from a novel by Andy Weir, who also wrote The Martian, and it has many similarities with that Matt Damon space epic, including screenwriter Drew Goddard, who penned both films.

Ryland Grace (Gosling) wakes up from a years-long induced coma on a spaceship, the lone survivor on a mission to the far-flung reaches of the galaxy.

He has no specific memories of why he’s there, and deduces from his context, personal affects and his knowledge of advanced science that he has been tasked with figuring out why one particular star, Tau Ceti, appears to be immune to the destruction wrought by a micro-organism that has been dubbed Astrophage.

Through flashbacks, we learn that Astrophage has started to dim Earth’s Sun, and that within 30 years, half the world’s population will likely die from catastrophic famine and conflict.

Grace was recruited to a mission by government agent Eva (Sandra Huller) to a global taskforce to solve this threat.

When he arrives at the position of Tau Ceti, he discovers another space ship, an alien one. He meets a creature he calls Rocky due to its rock-like appearance, and after some false starts, the two work out how to communicate.

They have the same goal, to work out why this star is safe from Astrophage, so they can save their respective planets.

Like in The Martian, Project Hail Mary is about one man in space MacGyvering with science to solve a specific tangible problem, but the addition of Rocky changes the dynamic.

Grace has his hang-ups to solve, including the knowledge that this was a one-way trip, and we discover through the interlaced flashbacks more and more about his background and how he got here.

But the core of Project Hail Mary is the growing friendship between Grace and Rocky, and the simplicity of it is why this film hits so effectively.

Lord and Miller, who have made films including The Lego Movie and the Spider-Verse flicks, are so good at managing tone, and Project Hail Mary balances the gravity of the story with a lightness and generosity of spirit.

The production used practical effects and puppetry to portray Rocky, rather than CGI, and there’s something about the tactility of that which deepens the audience connection to the character. It’s almost a primal feeling – like with Baby Yoda/Grogu – where you just know it’s different.

It’s probably also why Gosling can create such a strong bond with Rocky, because he’s not acting opposite a tennis ball on a stick being used for an eyeline reference.

By all rights – and in hundreds of other movies – these two characters shouldn’t get on. They’re not of the same species or language (Rocky uses echolocation) and they come from completely different worlds, but in recognising that they can work together instead of in opposition, they form not just a partnership but genuine respect and affection.

Not for nothing but that Earth-bound, science-led taskforce is also a collective endeavour of different countries.

If that’s not an allegory and a plea for our increasingly embittered and divisive world that refuses to work together to solve the problems that will affect us all, then what is?

It doesn’t have to be that hard.

Rating: 4/5

Project Hail Mary is in cinemas on March 19