“Project Hail Mary” (2026) is Best When Experienced with the Heart (Part I of II)

(8/10)

“Project Hail Mary” (2026) is undoubtedly a science fiction film. It involves space, aliens and survival of humanity–all elements of a typical sci-fi. Yet to categorize it is as such seems like a misnomer, for the film’s great success is not in the sciences but in the emotions.

The film opens with Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) awakening from an induced coma on an interstellar spacecraft. He doesn’t know how he got there, but he gradually learns that he’s the sole survivor of a three-person crew on a 10-year mission to Tau Ceti. Grace remembers that he’s a middle school science teacher with a doctorate in molecular biology. He’s in the classroom rather than the academia because he got laughed out of the scientific community by claiming that there can be life without water.

Back on earth, there is a crisis. A microorganism named “astrophage” is accumulating on the sun’s surface, causing it to dim. As a result, there will be calamitous global cooling within 30 years. Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) is leading the world’s effort to find a solution, and she recruited Grace precisely because of his controversial theory.

The astrophage has infected all other stars near earth, except one: Tau Ceti. Stratt launches an international mission named Project Hail Mary to send a crew on a one-way mission in order to find out why it’s unaffected, then to send the results back to earth on a probe. This is the mission Grace is on.

On the way to Tau Ceti, Grace’s spacecraft docks with an alien’s spacecraft. The alien is five-legged and rock-like, leading Grace to appropriately name him “Rocky.” Rocky’s home plant is going through the same crisis as earth, and so begins the two’s collaboration to save their respective home planets.

This movie is at its best when telling the story of the relationship between these two. Grace finds a way to communicate with Rocky, and Rocky discovers a way to live on Grace’s spaceship. From there a close bond forms, often through small, funny moments. Grace can’t get any privacy because Rocky has an incredible sense of hearing; Rocky learns what “fishing” is by experiencing it on a simulator on Grace’s spaceshuttle. It’s these moment that make the movie quite heartfelt, all the way to the last scene.

(Continues to Part II)