A man awakens from a coma. He can barely speak, he doesn’t know who he is, he doesn’t know where he is, and the two other members of his crew have not survived the induced comas. The clinical setting gives him no clues until he finds a window staring directly into outer space. Project Hail Mary begins with my worst nightmare: Staring into the void without knowing how I got there, what I’m doing there, and worst, how I’m getting back home to Earth.
Slowly, Dr. Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, discovers clues on board to his identity and his mission, which lead to memories of his life preceding the spaceship. He is a middle school science teacher, tasked by an unidentified government branch headed by a seemingly cold Eva Stratt, played by Sandra Hüller, to identify and understand the mysterious cause of the swiftly dimming sun.
Grace, an underdog and unwilling hero, nevertheless identifies the living cells and their elements. In doing so, he also becomes the only man left who can head up the interstellar science experiment meant to save the world.
As he becomes more conscious of his identity, surroundings, and suicidal task, Grace’s ship bumps into another ship with the same mission, headed by a crab-like creature made of rock who becomes known as Rocky. The two unlikely cohorts learn to communicate via sound, echolocation, and a laptop. They become friends and, eventually, hilariously, roommates.
As they get closer to solving the problem, Grace spills the truth – his mission is one-way. He’s going to save the day and then he is going to die, as they did not have enough matter to fuel the spaceship back to Earth. Rocky takes it hard, but Grace puts on a brave face. Together, they focus on the problem: finding the solution to the dimming stars and getting the answers back to their respective homes.
Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, known for the classic franchise work Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, are masters of spectacle and color. In Project Hail Mary they create a world in space of swirling color, light, and sound, which dazzles and dominates the screen. The effects are astounding, from explosions on Earth to explosions in space. The world is wholly believable and terrifying, building much of the suspense from the visuals themselves.
The film is an adaptation of the novel by Andy Weir, but having not read it, I cannot speak to the film’s loyalty to the novel. The screenplay, however, was written by Drew Goddard, who wrote darkly funny wonders like The Cabin in the Woods and Bad Times at the El Royale, and it is gorgeous. Goddard artfully juggles drama, humor, and suspense without missing a literal beat. He deftly tells the story between present time and flashbacks to Grace’s memories, and handles the painful moments as gracefully as the comic lines.
The acting in the film is top-notch. Project Hail Mary is carried by Gosling’s Grace, the hapless, wildly displaced everyman. He runs the gamut of emotion, while also providing most of the humor in the story. As a Gosling superfan ever since his heartrending turn in Lars and the Real Girl, I like to say that he can do anything from hard drama like Drive to straight comedy like The Fall Guy. Here, he straddles multiple genres — action, drama, comedy — and lands it with a perfectly bittersweet dismount. The supporting cast, especially Hüller as Stratt, has little else to do but play along, which all do well. Stratt is Gosling’s straight man and has to show little to no emotion for the role she plays in his, and the others’, heroism, for the sake of the world’s survival.
In sum, Project Hail Mary is an ambitious project visually, aurally, and story-wise that wholeheartedly succeeds. I want to complain about the three-hour viewing length, but I saw no way around it, and frankly, I did not suffer one minute of the time. The writing, direction, and acting sucked up all three hours into a pleasurable vacuum of time and space, where I got to spend 180 practically perfect minutes with Ryan Gosling. Who could complain about that?
FILM
Project Hail Mary
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Written by Drew Goddard and Andy Weir
Starring Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, and James Ortiz
Released March 20, 2026
Southern Review of Books 