Project Hail Mary: The Book: The Movie

Yes, I can read

I read the book Project Hail Mary during deep, dark COVID. Ireland had period of particularly brutal lockdown in 2021, and that, along with prolonged overtime and stress at work and the relentlessness of working without childcare for months and months, I spent most of that year in a pretty down place, maybe not depressed, but most of that year was spent shuffling through a dull, grey fog¹.

But I remember reading Project Hail Mary. I had read and loved The Martian, Andy Weir’s first book. I read and hated (sorry, Andy!) his second book Artemis, so I didn’t know what to expect when I cracked it open, but when would I flump exhaustedly into bed each night for the couple of weeks it took to read PHM, I was absolutely delighted to be in that story, and smiled wide when I finished it.

Showtime

Four years later and I see the trailer for Project Hail Mary: The Movie with Ryan Gosling, and Drew Goddard, the same talented screenwriter who turned The Martian – which is a dense, nerdy book with lots of clunky dialogue and shallow characters – into a compelling, fun film. Directed by Lord and Miller, the miraculous directors of 22 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Into the Spiderverse. These guys cook!

But then, when the trailer dropped, I was conflicted. My favourite part of the experience of reading the book is when this detailed, compelling hard-sci-fi story filled with problem solving and mystery takes a very surprising turn, and shifts into a different gear, which happens quite a long way into the book.

mfw I wake up from cryosleep lol

I was honestly disappointed to see this reveal happen in the trailer, which undermined a moment of true delight, but I accept the logic of it; this is an expensive endeavour and you have to put bums in seats.

Spoiler alert! If you’d rather not be spoiled, turn back now.

Spoilertown

The spoiler is, of course, that this lonely spaceman’s mission to safe humanity ends up being a story about first contact, friendship and even love.

The experience of reading the book is that you are so invested in Ryland Grace’s problem-solving and experiments, the scope of the mystery and the problem of solving it unfolding in your head, that a proximity alert is the absolute last thing you’re thinking about, and then when it turns out to be an alien spaceship, it’s honestly mind-blowing. The turn then into such a touching story of friendship and connection, against the prospect of crushing loneliness that had been set up in the conceit, is so welcome, and propels you through the same story you were expecting, but now the chances of success and somehow even the stakes are much higher.

It kicks ASS.

So when the trailer revealed it, I was honestly aghast.

But sure look – a friend of ours went with Nathalie and saw it without seeing any of the marketing material, and was caught totally off-guard by the reveal, so good things can still happen!

Adaptation

I saw it in my local Omniplex with my mate Paul this week, and I honestly loved it. They made a lot of deviations from the book, which I find impossible to ignore, but make a lot of sense. Cutting back on a lot of the scientific problem-solving, even more than in the adaption of The Martian, in favour of the overall plot and character developments is probably the right call. I would watch a 3h version of this film with some of that added back in, but most people probably wouldn’t.

In scaling back on so much detail, they made room for more personality and emotional complexity; and my favourite of this is in their characterisation of Eva Stratt. Sandra Hüller is incredible; she seems just as ruthless, but with a depth of feeling behind it that makes her much more compelling than the glib, dry authoritarian of the book.

In particular, I did not expect to find myself choking up at someone singing karaoke to a Harry Styles song, but the resonance of the lyrics (go, Harry!) and her lowering the walls to show how much she cares about people – and, holy shit, her amazing voice – blew me away. The filmmakers (with Andy Weir) also included a little hint at the end of a hidden subplot about her, which I appreciated.

It’s visually poetic, and looks unlike any other space movie

In general, the sheer scope of the story is all there on screen, which I was just so impressed by. The cinematographer Greig Fraser is quickly becoming my favourite of all time. Dune and The Batman are both impossibly good-looking movies and he (and the whole production design team) does an amazing job here. Project Hail Mary looks unlike any space movie I have ever seen; gloriously colourful and with real texture to it.

Not Cowards

The decision to go with a puppet for Rocky is so, absolutely, the right call. And this interview with James Ortiz who “plays” and voices Rocky is really illuminating for why even the moments that are CG feel grounded and real, rather than floaty and cheap.

In a cultural moment where AI evangelists are trying to devalue and cheapen creative work, seeing how much human effort went into something that just feels and looks so fucking good is really reassuring that even though the pull is strong, human-made decisions are still important. It’s heartwarming!

Feel good about bad things?

There’s been some interesting discourse on whether this is a bit of a throwback to the cinematic American optimism (and exceptionalism?) of the ’90s, but I think it’s actually more tender than that. I think (and hope) that this is a post-cringe movie. The astrophage, seen as an allegory of the myriad catastrophes we have gleefully stomped into as a species, is not treated like something One White American Man can save us all from, and the film is not shy about the reality that apart from this one project to throw three poor souls at the problem, most countries will not co-operate. There will be death, catastrophe, and imperial fuckery. But, that doesn’t mean despair. Hope and trust are the reason the story has a happy ending, or as happy an ending as it does, and I love that.

P.S.

I have also been loving how Ryan Gosling (who seems to be the principle producer behind the project) has been marketing it:

Ryan Gosling is a marketing genius

1. OK, maybe I was depressed, but I got through it OK :-) ↩︎