Project Hail Mary

Are we still brave even if we are pushed or forced to do something incredibly hard? That’s a question reverberating through Project Hail Mary, a movie meant to be seen in theaters if there ever was one.

Another way to pose the question is this: How do we show up for ourselves and others when in the middle of impossible circumstances?

When goofy science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship from an induced coma, with no memory of how he got there, he is in the middle of the worst circumstances. He’s entirely alone, for one, having discovered that the other crew members are dead. When his memory comes back in fragments (shown in flashbacks), he remembers his mission: to save the earth from the star-eating substance that is infecting the galaxy and causing the sun to die out slowly.

We know Grace is brilliant, with his background in molecular biology. He’s been shoved from the scientific spotlight and into a middle school classroom because of his inability to play by the stoic rules of the scientific community, but viewers understand he’s really the smartest guy around.

Still, he’s up against a brick wall. Finding out you’re lightyears away from home, more alone than you thought possible—and will probably die—would rattle anyone, and Grace is rattled. But then he gets to work, patiently, curiously, calculating math equations, trying things out on the spaceship, and dignifying the lives of the two crew members who never woke up. In a genre where dead bodies are a dime a dozen, Grace affirms the two crew members’ lives and worth as humans in a notable, touching way.

And then, when he realizes he’s not actually alone, the movie shifts into themes of collaboration, interdependence, and the essential soul need we all have for friendship.

Based on the blockbuster novel by Andy Weir (The Martian), Project Hail Mary is two and a half hours of wonder and warmth, humor and poignancy.

Gosling is perfectly cast as Grace. It’s hard to picture any other actor who could convey all the ingredients needed for this character. He is hilarious, we knew that, but also tender, fearful, flawed, desperate, and achingly vulnerable.

His character’s name, Grace (no one calls him “Ryland”) is fittingly bestowed. Only grace can disrupt our previously doomed narrative and offer new possibilities of life in Christ. Only grace can transform the impossible into the possible.

Rated PG-13 by the MPA for "some thematic material and suggestive references,” this movie is suitable for older children and above. (In theaters, Amazon MGM Studios)