OPEN POST: "Project Hail Mary" (a review)

I saw "Project Hail Mary" (in the theater!) last night and I loved all two and a half hours of it (it's even better than "Cats")! I've been hearing about how good it is, but I had no idea what it's about (I hadn't seen any ads, probably because my tv's always on MeTv and most of the ads are for term-life insurance), but it isn't a religious film, it's sci-fi, but not drearily dystopian or aliens committing horrors. I can't remember any movie where I've smiled so much all through it.

A brief precis: something molecular called astrophages are eating up the energy of the sun, which could lead to our planet's extinction, as well as other stars in our universe, except for one star. A ship has to be sent to that one star that hasn't been affected to figure out why, and to stave off our own destruction. Sounds pretty grim, huh?  Well, it ain't.

Ryan Gosling is Dr. Grace, a professor at a middle school for brainiacs, and he's dorky and charming and not at all sexy (which makes him SERIOUSLY sexy). He's chosen as part of a huge team of geniuses to possibly helm the ship, but many are culled and in the end only he ends up alive on board. And he wakes up light years away from home and achingly alone.

(I was in a theater with a HUGE screen but the rows were so steep I was afraid if I leaned forward I'd fall to a grisly demise) 

Then he meets up with an alien whose planet faces the same dilemma.

The alien resembles a spider made of cement and their attempts to communicate are impossible until they learn to use the universal language of math. And they work together and become friends - and that's about all I'll tell you, except that Sandra Huller plays Eva Stratt, the woman in charge of the whole multi-government consortium of scientists tasked with determining who's the best people to send on the ship and, as excellent as Gosling and the actor playing the alien are, she fucking OWNS this movie.

I tried to steer clear of reviewers to avoid spoilers but just in the course of figuring out what the movie's about I read a few critiques of the performers and several said she's a ruthless character. Bullshit. She's intelligent and deeply ethical but she's driven to do whatever will accomplish the task at hand. Also, she's effin' hilarious in a dead-pan way and she has the single best moment in the movie (anyone who sees it will know what I'm talking about).

Caveats? I guess the book it was based on is considered *hard* sci-fi and probably a fair amount was simplified so people like me (i.e. regular moviegoers) could follow along, and there's a few jarringly cutesy moments that I assume were to keep the kids in the audience interested. There's some schmaltz but there's lots of real feeling as well, plus a few heart-stopping moments when things go wrong:

Also, as terrific as the soundtrack is, the last song (which I like) playing over the final credits is religious and this is NOT a religious movie (without even really thinking about it I assumed every character is rigorously secular). But anyway, this was the best movie I've seen in a theater in a long time, and maybe I just needed something truly positive, something where science and logic make a difference for the better of this world. Plus, fuckin' Sandra Huller!

Among the many funny moments, at one point Gosling says to all the big important people "You chose me because I'm expendable, didn't you?" and all the big important people confer and Huller responds "The consensus is we would prefer for you to live."

All this aside, this is Open Post, so talk about whatever the heck you feel like, I just wanted to share a movie that, er, moved me. You can even talk about classic cars if you like, like this vintage Mustang I saw a while back in a fast food parking lot. After all, it's Open Post, darlings!

Photo Credits: AK, Amazon/MGM