Since its March 20 release, “Project Hail Mary” has proven to be a veritable box office juggernaut: It grossed the current asking price for the Anaheim Ducks on its opening weekend, and even more impressively, made nearly the same amount its second weekend.
Such a feat is virtually unheard of in modern cinema, as it means that either the audience returned for a second helping, or that they were so swayed by it they effectively became missionaries for its cause via word-of-mouth. Such uniform endorsement merits further investigation.
“Project Hail Mary” follows Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), a former molecular biologist drummed out of academia and into middle-school education for unorthodox beliefs. (He insists water isn’t a prerequisite for extraterrestrial life, and is only assumed so because of the inherent bias of those scientists who happen to be 60% H20.) His theories start to sound a bit less outlandish when single-cell organisms are spotted on the surface of our sun and surrounding stars, consuming and dimming their heat. A scary black car soon pulls up and requests his mandatory involvement to solve this extinction-level event.
The international coalition is headed by German scientist Eva Stratt, and actress Sandra Hüller imbues her character with the trademark humor and frivolity the country is known for. She quickly deduces there is only one star nearby undimmed by the microbes, so if there is any solution, it will be found there. The plan is to send astronauts on a one-way trip to this second star on the right, figure out why it’s immune, and send back the answer so Earth will be saved, even if they won’t.
The odds are astronomical in every sense of the word, so the project and the spaceship are thus christened the “Hail Mary.”
Through machinations better seen than explained, Grace wakes up alone several lightyears away with no memory of how or why he was chosen to board the Hail Mary. Clever readers at home will note how this Hail Mary is full of Grace. But despite having read the original novel, this did not once occur to me until I was informed by a friend in the theater lobby afterward.
All of this is already plot enough for a trilogy, but much of it becomes an afterthought when Grace arrives at the healthy star and realizes another planet, and another species, have formed a similar plan. Grace now has a partner in his mission, one with more legs than he ever expected.
This all begs the original question: what about this movie struck a chord on the world’s heartstrings? Surely it was based on a popular novel, but that just pushes the same question back one step. It is the opinion of this author that “Project Hail Mary” is such a hit because it remembers the power and audacity of hope. As the X-Files’ Fox Mulder (an expert on matters extraterrestrial) pointed out: human beings, and perhaps their more crab-like entities out there, simply Want to Believe.
This movie has landed at a time when the world feels a bit bereft of hope. Speaking as a millennial (though in true millennial fashion, no one has asked me to), I see the older generation has quit bothering and settled on stripping the nation’s walls for copper wiring. The younger generation, in a fit of youthful naivety, has taken the older generation at its word and truly believes the world is past saving. Millennials believe we’ll never retire because of the economy, while Generation Z believes they’ll never retire because the world will simultaneously flood and burn sometime around 2028 (hopefully before the Olympics traffic.)
“Project Hail Mary” isn’t the first piece of optimistic science fiction, but it’s the first in a good while — and a good reminder that our problems are solvable, and that sometimes the first problem to solve is despair. I am reminded how the four-minute mile was once feared so impossible that humans might burst on the attempt. When Roger Bannister broke the barrier and remained unexploded, several more runners broke the barrier that same year. The impossible is often well within our grasp; we just need the occasional example.
Another helpful fact is that there is no computer program that solves the global crisis at hand in the film. Instead, human ingenuity and gumption turn out to be the tools we need. Every day we are bombarded with the message that humans are obsolete, and the only way forward is to keep feeding the beast that’ll eventually consume us for dessert. “Project Hail Mary” not only affirms the fire of the human spirit, it demonstrates it: according to the directors, not a single green screen was used the whole shoot. Philosophy as filmmaking, anyone?
“Project Hail Mary” also rejects a common theme in recent science fiction: the idea of mankind’s inherent violence, and that any interaction with alien species will inevitably put us on the path to mutually assured annihilation.
Seeing as we are about four to six wars deep at present, I’ll admit the theory holds some merit. The sci-fi series “The Three-Body Problem” invokes something called the Dark Forest theory, where every species in the universe maintains radio silence because discovery equals extinction. Here interaction with other species goes beyond mere diplomacy: Grace and his alien ally actually become bros. It’s a vision of intergalactic cooperation, where guys can be dudes across genome and appendage.
For all the star dimming and alien rock spiders, the most surprising moment of the movie comes in a conversation between Grace and Stratt back on Earth. Stratt expresses a wish that God will help their cause, and Grace slightly raises an eyebrow. Theism isn’t well known with scientists or Germans, so meeting a religious German scientist is about as likely as meeting God himself.
“Do you really believe in God?” he asks, more surprised than offended. The answer is a shrug.
“It beats the alternative.” This is Pascal’s Wager, not as a concession but a doubling down, that hope is faith. So you’ve decided humanity is worth saving: this is where the real work begins.
