GoKawiilRyan Gosling heads to space in Project Hail Mary, the big-budget sci-fi adventure movie from Oscar-winning directing duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller that hit theaters this weekend. The film, adapted from Andy Weir's best-selling novel of the same name, finds school teacher Ryland Grace immersed in a top-secret government operation. The sun is dying, and he's enlisted to find out why and to stop it.
If I didn't mention the people involved in the movie, that description can easily be pegged to a variety of space disaster films that have come and gone. But this ain't no Michael Bay movie. In fact, Project Hail Mary is unlike most titles of its kind in that the story avoids the bleak, hopeless tone that comes with galactic doom-and-gloom, race-against-time survival tales. And there's an alien in there, to boot.
When I settled in for the IMAX press screening, the person introducing Project Hail Mary said it is ultimately a story about the power of friendship. I rolled my eyes at the notion, but I ate my words once the credits rolled. It is exactly that, and it shows how a simple emotional connection and a drive to solve a shared problem can bring together people from different backgrounds, including a rock-spider alien without a face.
"It's a bromance," Weir told me over Zoom. "It's a story of two people who become friends and then work together. So collaboration, cooperation... I'm optimistic and have these positive views of humanity and stuff, and therefore I project those views onto imaginary aliens."
Author Andy Weir on the set of Project Hail Mary. Amazon MGM Studios
I had the opportunity to chat with Weir earlier this week about Project Hail Mary. I wanted to explore the story's hopeful, fun vibe, and the celebrated sci-fi author taught me a few things he learned when he first brought the story to life.
"I believe humanity is pretty frickin' awesome," he began, "and I think we do great things, especially when we're pushed. So, I think we're an amazing species, and we do amazing things."
That's a perspective that makes Project Hail Mary such a breath of fresh air. I told him so, acknowledging the "science is cool" message the movie imparts early on, when Grace is seen teaching his students. In turn, he put on his proverbial teacher hat and schooled me on a deeper concept that underlies nearly all space exploration stories in science fiction.
"I wrote down a list of everything that I think an alien species would need to have to get up to the point where they can make a spaceship," he said. "What do you need?"
(Insert my baffled blink and shoulder shrug, here.)
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