Project Hail Mary: 2025’s Hopecore Movie

Jun 3

A few movies a year come out that seem to be made with the intent of restoring faith in humanity, or, in other words, inspiring hope in their viewers. Some refer to these movies as “hopecore.” These movies have been made since at least 1946 (see It’s a Wonderful Life), but more recent examples include movies like Superman (2024) or The Holdovers (2023).

This year’s ultimate hopecore film is without a doubt Project Hail Mary, and masses online are even considering it one of the best movies of the decade.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller started their careers with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, followed by 21 Jump Street, its sequel 22 Jump Street, and The Lego Movie. Now they’ve directed a critically and commercially acclaimed $200 million space epic that’s gearing up to gross almost $700 million and win dozens of awards.

Project Hail Mary is an adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 novel of the same name. It follows science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) after he wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there. As his memory returns, he also gains an unlikely friendship in Rocky the Eridian alien. The acting is great, the screenplay is charming and full of heart, and the visuals are striking.

Ryan Gosling delivers one of the best performances of his career, and the movie lives and dies by it. He spends most of the movie acting by himself or against a puppet. Gosling balances smarts, humor, charm, vulnerability, and heart extraordinarily well, making the isolation of space feel captivating and engaging rather than boring and empty. His character is grounded and feels like, as fans say online, “the definition of ‘accidentally became important at work and it’s ruining my life’” (https://boxd.it/dtYAIt). For all of the film’s strengths, none of it would have mattered if Ryan Gosling did not deliver. Without a performance at that level, Project Hail Mary would fail under the weight of its own premise.

Despite Gosling’s monopoly on screentime, two other characters are highlighted. Sandra Hueller (Eva Stratt) is, much to my disappointment, utterly wasted in this movie. Hueller gave one of the best performances of the past decade in Anatomy of a Fall and is one of the best actresses working today, but in Project Hail Mary she is not really given much to do. Stratt is a fine character (who does indeed deliver a delightful rendition of Harry Styles’s “Sign of the Times”) but I can’t help but feel that there could have been more there, especially with an actress of Hueller’s caliber playing the character.

The opposite can be said for James Ortiz’s Rocky. Similar to E.T. (E.T.) or Grogu (The Mandalorian), Lord and Miller struck gold with Rocky (expect to see Rocky plushies all around come Christmastime) and a lot of it is due to Ortiz’s voice acting (and puppetry!). Rocky is funny and heartwarming and by the end of the movie, you’ve formed a pretty strong emotional connection to a faceless rock creature. Going into the movie, I was worried Rocky would be a gimmick, but he ended up being one of my favorite movie characters of the year so far.

As good as the performances are, they do owe at least a portion of their success to the screenplay. The screenplay shines in its comedy, though it is lacking in a number of other areas. The story retraces its steps a few too many times, almost beating the plot into the viewer’s head, and while the jokes are often very good (I find myself quoting “amaze amaze amaze” all the time, and “fist my bump” has almost entirely replaced “fist bump” in my lexicon) the screenplay leans a bit too much into the jokes. There is a scene highlighting the striking visuals of the film (when Grace views the Petrova Line in striking red/pink) that is undermined by a joke that is not nearly strong enough to match the beauty of the scene (the “I’m having a moment” joke). It feels like the movie tries too hard to be quippy. The script is well above average, it just suffers from forcing too much comedy and maybe a lack of nuance in the story.

Some of the directorial choices by Lord and Miller, specifically the camerawork, were underwhelming, also. Project Hail Mary wasn’t trying to be 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I did find the camera work to be uninspired and lacking flair. There are, of course, exceptions, but by and large, I found the shots to be lacking major originality in how they were framed. That said, the visuals are undeniably amazing, and you can tell that this is where Lord and Miller focused a lot of their efforts, along with cinematographer Greig Fraser. The visuals get even more impressive once you learn that there were no green or blue screens used in filming. The film looks incredible and I found myself awe struck at times.

Despite some minor flaws, I do think Project Hail Mary is a very good movie. It’s funny, the almost three-hour runtime flies by, it looks great, and it’s full of heart. It is not a perfect movie, but, again, it isn’t trying to be 2001, it’s trying to be Project Hail Mary and it definitely succeeds at doing that, creating a movie for all ages that can pull anybody out of a bad mood. So with Project Hail Mary finally making it to streaming, it is a perfect time to check out the newest hopecore movie and restore your faith in humanity. And rocks.