I spent the weekend before last in the Washington, D.C area. Brigid and I were out there for the wedding of a childhood friend of mine. Given that Brigid grew up in the area and we both have numerous friends there, it turned into a gloriously full weekend of catching up and celebrations.
I’ve always been ambivalent about DC, but this time around it provided so many good times and good opportunities to spend time with loved ones that I’m inclined to overlook its faults.
Fist my bump.
[Light Spoilers Ahead for Project Hail Mary]
This past weekend we caught a Friday night showing of Project Hail Mary at SIFF Downtown.1 It’s the finest movie house I’ve ever been to, and my enjoyment of the movie itself can’t really be separated from my love for it as an institution and as a place where I’ve spent many happy hours before.
That being said, the movie itself is a delight. It’s well-paced and well-shot and Ryan Gosling makes the most of his ample time on the screen. He’s well cast for the role of reluctant (indeed non-consensual) hero and his goofy demeanor fits well into tone of the film, despite the high stakes. The high stakes, in fact, are mostly theoretical. The film spends most of the time with the end of all life on earth as remote, but certain. It’s the topic of discussion and anguish, but we’re never really shown the catastrophe.
Instead, most of the movie, even the scenes on Earth, is claustrophobic and remote. It takes place in cramped spacecraft, sea-vessels, and laboratories. It’s a testament the quality of the script and the production that we don’t really ever miss seeing the world that’s under threat.
The best part of the film, though, is the interaction between Gosling’s Dr. Ryland Grace and James Ortiz’ “Rocky”2, an alien from the Eridani star system. Their camaraderie and mutual “fish out of water” situation are the core of most of the pathos and comedy through much of the film.
The biggest problem with the film is that it seems to sacrifice a great deal of detail in the name of pacing. Whole questions are raised and then set down with convenient Sci-Fi magic. How can Rocky create such intricate models and structures? Not clear, but here’s 5km of hand-knitted, high-tensile-strength chain. The bioengineered material is going to destroy Rocky’s ship? It’s okay, Grace can trivially catch up with him by changing course and has no trouble finding him. Opportunities for depth or exploration are waived away to preserve the lighthearted, fast-paced tone of the film.
This is less a critique and more advice on the right headspace to go into the movie with. Andy Weir, who wrote the novel the film is based on, has a reputation for depth of scientific rigor and “showing his work” in his science fiction. That certainly didn’t translate in Project Hail Mary as well as it did in the Martian.3 If you go in with the expectation that you’re going to see dramatic tension fueled by scientific exploration and rigor, then you’ll be disappointed.
If you go in expecting to see a tense-but-funny buddy action film with Ryan Gosling and a well-puppeted pile of rocks, then you’ll find it, to quote Rocky, “amaze amaze amaze!”
Née Cinerama
It turns out Ortiz both voiced Rocky and served as his lead puppeteer. I naively assumed that Rocky was almost entirely CGI, which is testament to the quality of Ortiz and his crew’s efforts.
Here’s where I admit that, while I’ve seen both films, I’ve read neither book.