Project Hail Mary
Ryan Gosling stars in a barmy space oddity about self-sacrifice, communication and the end of the cosmos as we know it.
The longshot: Ryan Gosling
Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
A little bit of Ryan Gosling can go a long way, but you’d have to be a total groupie to embrace Project Hail Mary without reservation. It’s basically Ryan in outer space, a lot of sci-fi babble and a mission to isolate the properties of the microorganism that is Astrophage. Of the one-man-in-space canon (think Silent Running, Moon, The Martian, etc), none have come this close to light-headed whimsy. Dr. Ryland Grace is not even an astronaut, but a science teacher who likes to think outside the box and once wrote a contentious paper that made him a laughing stock. Nonetheless, the brightest minds across the globe are not interested in conventional thought and a Nasa-sanctioned think tank approaches Grace to grace their Hail Mary mission. Talk about nominative determinism.
Due to an astrophagial outbreak, the energy of our sun is being depleted, as are all the stars of the cosmos. While the (fictional) astrophagial virus is heralding the end of all life as we know it, it does come in handy as rocket fuel, which helps to power the Hail Mary spacecraft across the stars. On board are an engineer, an astronaut and Dr Grace, who have been placed in hypersleep (induced comas) on their way to the constellation of Cetus. The best bit is the opening, when a shaggy, long-haired Gosling wakes up on board, not knowing where he is or how he got there. But being a super science geek, he quickly works out the surrounding apparatus and discovers that his comatose companions have died on the journey. Then, as flashbacks of his former life begin to come into focus, he realises that his mission is to establish the properties of the Astrophage (‘star eater’ in Greek). It takes a while, but he shaves his beard and soon discovers that he is not alone…
On many levels, Project Hail Mary is an unquestionably original film and one that expects a degree of intelligence and imagination (and pop cultural knowledge) on the part of its audience. However, the whimsy is laid on so thick that were it not for the holy trinity of Daniel Pemberton’s mystical score, the superlative sound design and some suitably mind-bending CGI, it really would have been a lost cause. Structurally uneven and perversely overlong, Project Hail Mary expects an enormous amount of patience on the part of the viewer as Gosling goofs off in outer space. There is a change in direction at the halfway mark, which starts off promisingly until succumbing to Spielbergian sentimentality. Depending on one’s disposition, the film could be seen as an existential experience or just a self-indulgent fancy.
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub, Priya Kansara, and the voices of James Ortiz and Meryl Streep.
Dir Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Pro Amy Pascal, Ryan Gosling, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Aditya Sood, Rachel O'Connor and Andy Weir, Screenplay Drew Goddard, Ph Greig Fraser, Pro Des Charles Wood, Ed Joel Negron, Music Daniel Pemberton, Costumes David Crossman and Glyn Dillon, Sound Erik Aadahl, Malte Bieler, Nia Hansen and Dave Whitehead.
Pascal Pictures/Open Invite Films/Waypoint Entertainment/Lord Miller Productions-Sony Pictures.
156 mins. USA. 2026. UK and US Rel: 20 March 2026. Cert. 12A.
