‘project Hail Mary’ Offers The Good, Clean, Fun Moviegoers Have Missed

Andy Weir’s novel Project Hail Mary is an enormously entertaining sci-fi page turner with a brilliant narrative structure and endearing characters. But it’s also quite sciencey—full of brain-bending speculative physics, chemistry, and molecular biology. It puts the “science” in science fiction.

After reading the book, I was skeptical that a movie adaptation could thread the needle between saying enough about the story’s science and not getting bogged down in it. And would the visual depictions of the novel’s Eridian aliens, interstellar spacecraft, and distant galaxies be cheesy or believable?

Amazingly (or in the film’s parlance, “Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!”), the movie more than does justice to the book. It elevates it, adding immersive layers to the compelling story in ways only big-screen cinema can.

It’s an instant sci-fi classic. Funny, moving, awe-inspiring, thrilling. And for Christian audiences, it’s the rare PG-13 movie that’s clean and wholesome without being cheesy (apart from one sexual innuendo only adults will get, the movie could be rated PG). It’s a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster that families can enjoy together without fear. How refreshing.

But the film is edifying not only for what it doesn’t depict but for what it does. This is a redemptive story, beautifully told. As the title and the main character’s name (Ryland Grace) might suggest, Christian ideas infuse this film’s worldview, even if they’re not explicitly invoked.

New High for Sci-Fi

Project Hail Mary is an epic sci-fi movie that builds on and evokes previous icons of the genre.

• It’s like Interstellar in that it follows an interstellar travel, “look to the stars to save Earth” premise.
• It’s like The Martian in its celebration of science and “look what we can do when we put our mind to it!” problem-solving.
• It’s like Arrival in the “world overcoming divisions to address cosmic problems” sense.
• It’s like E.T. in the “cute alien befriends human” sense.

But Project Hail Mary is also its own original thing, boasting exceptional artistry across the board—Greig Fraser’s cinematography and Daniel Pemberton’s score are especially awesome—and acting that makes us care for the characters.

The plot hews closely to the book’s narrative (major spoilers ahead). The movie opens with Grace (Ryan Gosling)—a long-haired, bearded, vaguely Jesus-looking astronaut—waking up from a long sleep aboard a spaceship. He’s disoriented and doesn’t know where or even who he is. But as Grace gains his bearings, gradually remembering his backstory and the mission’s purpose, the audience does too.

Like the book, the film jumps between flashbacks to Earth showing the origins of Project Hail Mary and Grace’s current experience as the mission’s sole survivor. He is humanity’s last hope to save Earth from extinction due to a dying sun. Standard sci-fi conceit.

What takes the story in a fresh direction is the introduction of an alien character in the second act—a counterpart to Grace who has also been sent by his own home planet, Erid, to solve the same problem Earth has: Their “sun” is dying too. Stars all over the galaxy are dimming because of a mysterious, microscopic parasite called “astrophage.”

When Grace discovers that Rocky (as he calls his alien comrade) is benevolent and wants to solve the same problem, the two team up to save their respective planets. What ensues is essentially a buddy movie that celebrates friendship, sacrifice, and self-giving love. It’s a joy to watch.

Quintessentially Metamodern

Project Hail Mary feels like a quintessentially metamodern movie. This is in part because Gosling—in movies like Barbie and The Fall Guy—has emerged as the metamodern actor of his generation. He can effortlessly oscillate between sincerity and irony, innocence and world-weariness, earnest joy and self-aware jokes.

The character of Grace really lets Gosling milk this “informed naivete” vibe. He’s a dorky middle school science teacher who wears periodic table T-shirts that say “I wear this shirt periodically.” He makes jokes constantly but also gets serious often. He takes moments alone to contemplate beauty or sadness. In a powerful scene, he holds a makeshift funeral for his two fallen co-astronauts.

Metamodernism is the mix of postmodern irony and modern sincerity, detached self-referentiality and “all-in” engagement, cynical despair and childlike hope. Project Hail Mary operates within this metamodern register.

The film embodies the new sincerity of metamodernism and the “affective turn” in the arts. It’s a disarmingly earnest movie, unembarrassed by emotional catharsis. It’s unafraid of depicting straightforwardly good, inspiring characters who embody classical virtues. At the same time, the movie is highly self-aware and full of the sort of sardonic, self-referential humor that is a postmodern staple. Intertextual references to other movies abound: Rocky, Alien, and even Meryl Streep’s acting. It’s an incredibly smart, quick-witted movie made for media-savvy audiences steeped in pop culture vernacular. Yet it’s smart without being cynical.

Project Hail Mary is  unafraid of depicting straightforwardly good, inspiring characters who embody classical virtues.

One scene in particular struck me as metamodern in its sensibility. It’s a funny-poignant scene in a bar as members of Project Hail Mary celebrate together, one last time before mission launch. Stratt (Sandra Hüller), the no-nonsense Hail Mary project lead, takes the mic to sing Harry Styles’s “Sign of the Times.” The song is a playful and comically ironic choice, especially for such a serious person as Stratt. But as she sings it—earnestly, with real pain and affect in her voice—the song vibe-shifts quickly from irony to the purest sincerity.

That’s metamodernism. It’s desperate people singing Harry Styles songs as a coping mechanism at the end of the world, yet singing them with real hope and unabashed belief that a better outcome is possible.

Belief and building are hallmarks of metamodernism. After the “don’t believe in anything” nihilism of postmodernism and its orientation around deconstruction, metamodern people want to believe in things again. They want to build and solve problems rather than only tear down and critique.

Belief and building are key themes in Project Hail Mary. While belief in God is only briefly mentioned, belief in science is a major theme. Characters believe answers are out there. Problems are solvable. They want to build and innovate again—moving past the malaise of partisan gridlock to leverage collective creativity for good purposes.

It’s a movie nostalgic for the Apollo missions, or even for Manhattan Project–style science collaborations with existential stakes. It’s a movie techno-optimists will adore.

‘Hail Mary’ Full of Grace

Perhaps the most metamodern, vibe-shifty quality to Hail Mary is how redemptive it is on a spiritual level. The film draws from Christian virtues and ideas like sacrifice, selfless love, and—you guessed it—grace.

Did Weir name his hero Grace mostly for the verbal pun aspect, as a riff on the Catholic prayer’s rendering of Luke 1:28 (“Hail Mary, full of grace”)? Probably. But the character’s name also speaks to the grace he gives—sacrificing his life to save humanity—and the grace he receives. When Rocky gives Grace a chance at life, even after he’s “made peace” with the mission ending in his death, Grace responds with the only appropriate response to such an undeserved gift: “Thank you.”

The film draws from Christian virtues and ideas like sacrifice, selfless love, and—you guessed it—grace.

Is Grace (or Rocky for that matter) a “Christ figure”? I don’t like using that term. He’s certainly a virtuous man—jarring for his kindness and innocence, never cussing once in the film, for example. And Rocky is a virtuous Eridian who, at one point, does wear a “Savior of the world” hat as a (half) joke. Insofar as both echo the beauty of a story where one lays down his life for the world’s salvation, Christ’s gospel isn’t far in the background.

But Grace is also flawed—a reluctant hero who must be (literally) dragged into the mission. He doesn’t volunteer to lay down his life. But that makes his arc in the movie all the more beautiful. He has room to grow, to overcome fear, to become more selfless as the story progresses. And he does. It’s inspiring.

Project Hail Mary doesn’t preach the gospel. But it makes virtue look good. It makes selflessness, sacrifice, and duty attractive. If the movie is a huge hit—and I expect it will be—perhaps Hollywood will take the hint. We’re not in postmodernism anymore. Goodness, truth, and beauty are attributes we want in art again. Really, they’re what we’ve always wanted.