Ryan Gosling in Thrilling Sci-Fi Epic

Obvious comparisons will be drawn between Project Hail Mary and other space survival movies like Gravity or The Martian, the latter also based on a sci-fi novel by the same author, Andy Weir. Others might call it Cast Away in space. But if we’re going with simplistic movie kinships, I prefer the marriage of two other outstanding Ryan Gosling performances, as a schoolteacher in Half Nelson and an astronaut in First Man — both jobs that connect to his character in Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s soaring interplanetary buddy movie.

The first feature in 12 years from co-directors Lord and Miller — whose collaborations include The Lego Movie, the Spider-Verse films, 21 Jump Street and its sequel — the new film shows their facility for buoyant humor and heartfelt emotion very much intact. Even if Project Hail Mary at times leans into the sentiment to an almost saccharine degree, the movie’s natural sweetness is disarming. And it’s impossible to imagine an actor more adept at striking that tricky balance than Gosling, whose low-key comic timing has never been better.

Much has been written about Amazon MGM’s bid for a major theatrical blockbuster with this $200 million-plus production. But what’s far more striking while watching is the realization of how seldom we now get to see non-franchise original sci-fi of this scale or emotional depth. Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is an obvious precedent, in its NASA-supported space science as well as its scope; another is Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, which shares an awestruck sense of wonder at extraterrestrial contact.

Lord and Miller drop in a winking nod to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and many will recall E.T. once a key character dynamic kicks in. But what’s special about Project Hail Mary is its potential to tap into memories of different space sagas and alien lifeform movies for different generations. The creature that turns up midway to pool problem-solving resources with Gosling’s Ryland Grace reminded me of a more benign version of Galaxy Quest’s Rock Monster. (And no, that’s not a trivializing reference — Galaxy Quest rules.)

What’s most gratifying is the extent to which the filmmakers sought practical solutions and physical sets rather than relying solely on the digital toolbox or flattening the action with endless green-screen sequences. The emphasis on in-camera effects makes a massive difference to the wraparound feel of the experience. Nowhere is this more the case than with the puppetry and voice work of James Ortiz as the alien Ryland christens “Rocky,” a five-armed, blocky little being whose mechanical ingenuity is just the starting point for a poignant central relationship built on mutual curiosity and loneliness.

Or at least it’s one of the central relationships. The other is between Ryland and Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), the head of an international task force charged with tackling an escalating crisis to ensure humanity’s survival. Eva plucks Ryland out of his Cleveland classroom based on a hunch that the same unpopular molecular biology and biochemistry theories that got him branded as a pariah in the science community make him uniquely qualified to figure out the atmospheric threat causing the sun to dim at an alarming rate.

Eva is a complex character, flinty and businesslike, deadly serious about her mission and willing to make ethical compromises to move it forward. She clearly develops an affection for Ryland and a wry appreciation for his humor, mostly while maintaining an outer shell of brisk, emotionless efficiency. But even with that thaw, interpersonal relations come a distant second in her utilitarian priorities.

With a lesser interpreter in the role, Eva might have read more reductively as just a ruthless bureaucratic leader. But the extraordinary German actress Hüller, who broke through internationally in a big way in 2024 with Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, never lets the character’s clipped professionalism snuff out her humanity. Her most captivating scene is an unexpected moment of self-revelation that’s best kept under wraps. Let’s leave it at a thank you to Harry Styles.

Ryland’s recruitment on Earth and his negotiations with Eva come back to him slowly in fragments of memory after he emerges from an induced coma on a spaceship — the Hail Mary — light years from home. His straggly hair and beard indicate a prolonged hypersleep period, and Gosling nails his initial befuddlement with gentle humor that instantly establishes the kind of goofy self-deprecating dudeness behind which he hides a brilliant scientific mind. His hilarious choice of T-shirts further points up that duality.

Screenwriter Drew Goddard, who adapted Weir’s The Martian for Ridley Scott, gives Gosling great stuff to work with as Ryland struggles to regain use of his limbs or to form words while desperately wondering how he got to wherever he is. “What are we, like Neptune-ish?” he asks the ship’s AI operating system, of course named Mary (voiced by Priya Kansara). But as jokey as Ryland is by nature, the gravity of the situation is immediately apparent to him, especially once he discovers he’s the sole survivor of the three-member crew.

It’s touching to witness Ryland’s efforts to eulogize people of whom he has no memory, and there’s something both pragmatic and deeply spiritual about the finality of him jettisoning their bodies out into space. Mortality is as important a theme here as collective and individual survival.

The purpose of the mission this reluctant hero finds himself on is to unlock the mysteries of the solar parasite Astrophage, a single-celled alien microorganism that feeds off the energy of stars — including Earth’s sun — progressively dimming their light. A Russian scientist identified what became known as the Petrova Line, an infrared arc created by massive amounts of Astrophage moving to Venus to reproduce. If not stopped it has the potential to cause an extinction-level global ice age. Hence the grim determination with which Eva approaches the mission.

The filmmakers decline to dumb down the science, which is mostly accessible, though how much you keep up with the details seems optional, and unlikely to curb your involvement in the story either way.

The glimmer of hope comes in the discovery that one star, Tau Ceti, has somehow remained immune to infection, creating a gap in the Petrova Line. When Ryland travels to that star he encounters a ship from Erid, a planet with a different solar system but a common goal, and the one survivor on that ship makes contact.

Lord and Miller and their superb craft and technical departments — notably production designer Charles Wood; sound designers Erik Aadahl, Malte Bieler and Dave Whitehead; VFX chief Paul Lambert; and creature effects supervisor Neil Scanlan — make something genuinely majestic out of this meeting of two worlds.

Any movie lover nostalgic for a time when space exploration on the screen could still thrill and surprise us will get a huge kick out of the sequence. The time and attention to detail afforded it by Lord and Miller suggest that the directors are as susceptible as any of us to that amazement, elevated by the moving solemnity and celestial dimensions of Daniel Pemberton’s beautiful score.

The monumental scale and engineering complexity of the alien spacecraft alone are breathtaking, its intricate design hinting at the metal-rich composition of its home planet. Shooting in IMAX, cinematographer Greig Fraser — such an integral part of the world-building on the Dune films — captures the staggering size and structural sophistication of the ship, as well as both the vastness and the solitude of space with astonishing force.

There’s infectious joy and wonder as the Eridian who will come to be known as Rocky begins communicating with Ryland, at first with rudimentary signals and then with more complex language once Ryland rigs a translation device. These two strangers from different planets are rarely in the same space for much of the movie, due to their incompatible atmospheric requirements. But the growing rapport between them is lovely — even more so once Rocky builds an irregular prismatic form, a kind of rolling airtight terrarium, that enables him to board the Hail Mary.

Gosling maximizes the benefits of acting opposite another being rather than a blank space to be digitally filled in later, underlaying the playful humor and frequent frustration of their duologues with a tender sense of gratitude for Rocky’s companionship. Ortiz, through both his vocals and puppetry, makes Rocky no less emotionally receptive, albeit articulated in different ways.

As readers of the novel will know, the mission doesn’t follow the standard path of setbacks and breakthroughs but remains in constant flux, requiring new solutions at every turn as they attempt to save their two worlds. The pacing slackens a little as the complicated process inches forward, but the ending tugs the heartstrings in enormously satisfying ways.

Ryland is a great role for Gosling, whose easygoing charm makes him the ideal actor to mask anxiety and sorrow with throwaway humor, serving as a conduit for the story’s affecting contemplation of altruism and sacrifice. It’s a gorgeous performance, one of his best; he keeps us deeply invested in Ryland’s wins and losses throughout.

This marks a superlative major studio production debut for Hüller, who also has Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger coming in the fall, in which she stars opposite Tom Cruise. And it’s a delightful foray into features for Lionel Boyce, so wonderful on The Bear, playing a seemingly terse mission engineer who becomes a valuable collaborator to Ryland.

Lord and Miller have just the right lightness of touch combined with depth of feeling and technical control to bring this material to life, and the right love of vintage movie craft to make it a universe we can almost reach out and touch. What a pleasure to have them back in the director’s chair after too long away.