Amaze! Amaze! Amaze! A review of Project Hail Mary

Ever watched a film that lingers in your brain like glitter after a costume fitting? The sort of story that follows you home and quietly whispers, “think about me a little longer…” Check out Lilia´s review of Project Hail Mary ...a film full of wonder, humour and big emotions!  One of our Gold Diploma students, Lilia loves creating content with humour, heart and rather spectacular aesthetics.

Project Hail Mary

SPOILERS AHEAD! You have been warned!!

Hello everyone! This is my lovely review of the 2026 sci-fi movie Project Hail Mary! Okay, so before we get started with my thoughts and opinions, let’s get the basic facts out of the way. Project Hail Mary is directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, starring Ryan Gosling and based on the book written by Andy Weir.

When people ask me to describe what this film is about, my immediate answer is Ryan Gosling in space for two hours with a rock, or that it’s Interstellar if it had a personality. But for you guys, I will go into a little more detail.

In this film, our sun is dying. It’s getting eaten by these little things called Astrophage. So, the international task force creates a plan to send out three astronauts into space to figure out how these things work, send back some research and then die in space. However, only one of the astronauts survives the journey.

This story follows a man called Grace (Ryan Gosling). In the opening of this film, we see Grace in space, not fully knowing who he is. As the film goes on, we slowly discover more about Grace’s backstory. We find out that he is a school teacher with crazy scientific beliefs.  To try to keep this short, the government needs his help, Grace figures out what’s up, and — huge spoiler that needs to be said, otherwise my future points will make no sense — Grace never wanted to go on the mission. He didn’t want to die. Grace is forcefully put into a coma and onto the ship. I’ll go more into that later…

OH, and I almost forgot about the rock!

Rocky is a brilliant, rock-like alien engineer from the planet Erid. When Grace arrives at his destination, he is greeted by another species who are there for the same reason. Similar to what happened to Grace, only one of the creatures they sent survived the journey.

Grace and Rocky learn how to communicate and work together to save both of their planets.

That seems like a good amount of information, so let’s move on to some of my thoughts.

I went into this film with no idea what it was. I think that was the best way to go into it. Having no idea who Grace was, I was able to just watch the story weave his character together.  This film was literally an emotional rollercoaster! It made me laugh, it made me cry, it stressed me out, but also made me feel so happy.

The thing that immediately stood out to me was just how visually beautiful it was! The colour grading change from Earth to space is so lovely. On Earth, the colours are more muted and old-looking, whereas in space everything feels so vivid and alive, using lots of reds, greens and burnt oranges, which is different to the silvers and whites we have grown to associate with space and science tech.  The colours they use feel more nostalgic, taking us back to a time when the world was mechanical, not digital, and therefore fixing something was often in the hands of the user.

A really big thing we focus on is, of course, the relationship between Grace and Rocky. We watch them learn how to communicate with each other. In space, they are all each other have, and it’s so lovely watching how their friendship grows.

One scene I really like that shows the start of their friendship is when Rocky shows up at Grace’s ship in a ball. The sound design for Rocky moving around in the ball is like a pinball machine and feels chaotic, alive and playful.  Visually, we see Rocky rolling around like a scatty toddler and Grace running after him, chaotically cleaning things up. The camera captures two scenes in one frame, making it feel unpredictable.

A funny moment in this scene is when Grace says:

“Rocky, my hand is up.”

And both of them just pause.

Grace now feels like your average primary school teacher, and Rocky like a cute little toddler.

The environment is hostile. They are tripping, stumbling, surrounded by expensive equipment in an enclosed space. The creative impact of all this is that it feels warm, familiar, chaotic and funny. We see their faults, their humanity and their future connection. At this moment, we care more about them than the mission.

By doing all this, the director makes a completely bizarre situation feel relatable and deeply human.

One of my favourite scenes in this film is the fishing scene (not actual fishing). This is a really stressful moment for them and if it goes badly, they could die.

This moment really shows that their priorities are each other. Grace takes a risky move, and instead of Rocky’s focus being on the mission, he tries to convince Grace that they can come back another day, while constantly checking that he is okay.

When they try to leave, things go wrong, and within all the chaos Grace gets knocked out.

A thing to know, if you haven’t seen the film, is that Rocky and Grace can’t survive in the same atmosphere, so together they built a system that goes around the whole ship so that Rocky can be safe.  In this scene, Rocky sees that Grace is in danger and sacrifices himself to save his life. He breaks the glass and drags Grace to safety. They care for each other so much that Rocky would risk his own life to save Grace.

I want to talk a bit about the effect the filmmaking had on this scene.  The edit is continuously switching between Grace and Rocky’s different perspectives, which makes it feel like we are both observing them and experiencing their thoughts. The edit, at times, feels surprising and a little erratic.  We see lights, machines, technology, glimpses of space… without fully knowing what each element is or what is happening. We don’t know where to look.  This pushes the scene forward and creates a sense of imminence and danger.  The music wraps around the scene rather than driving it. It comes in and out.

A great moment is when we are met with silence… We know it is silent in space and, as an audience, it creates a sense of helplessness. There is no control at this moment. We just need to see what has happened.

Right after this, when Grace comes round, he gets up to see Rocky back in his safe space, but badly injured.  Earlier, Rocky told Grace how their species watch each other sleep because they go into such a deep state that they are not able to defend themselves. He then shares how he watched his crew sleep, but they never woke up.  They have a really lovely moment where Rocky asks Grace to watch him sleep, and Grace says:

“I will, but you have to promise to wake up.”

So Grace sits there for multiple days, watching his friend sleep.

In this moment, I could not stop crying. It was a real moment of stillness where we got to see how much they mean to each other.  

Showing their friendship is really important in this film. This film is mostly just Grace and a rock in space, so these moments are what make the audience care for these characters and give them a real sense of humanity.  Yes, they are both here on a mission, but that’s not all they care about. They created some really in-depth characters that, for me, drove the film more than the actual plot itself (the plot was also amazing).

Speaking about in-depth characters! Let’s go into Grace’s character development.  I know that the film is a non-linear narrative, but for the sake of my memory, I am just going to write about it in chronological order.

At the start of Grace’s journey, he is not much of a hero. He is a scared man with lots of self-doubt. He uses humour in tense situations, is an incredible teacher, but has always been told that his ideas are ridiculous.

You would look at this man and think:

“No way would he ever go to space and save the world.”

Which is completely different to his character at the end of the story.  He still has all the wonderful qualities that we love, but he is also selfless, brave and confident. He isn’t your typical Hollywood hero, but a real man being thrown into a crazy situation.

I want to go into some moments that really show his development.

A big moment is (going back to the fishing scene) when he jumps off the ship to retrieve the sample-collecting device.  Grace knew at that moment that he could die, but he did it anyway. He took a risk because retrieving that device was bigger than him.

This is some crazy development because, previously, back on Earth, when the international task force needed him to go on this mission to save the world, he told them no. He said he couldn’t do it, that he didn’t want to die, even though he knew that if he didn’t go on this mission, Earth had no hope of survival.

He was scared and chose his life over everyone else’s.

So this scene, where he literally jumps off the ship, sacrificing himself to maybe save Earth, shows some incredible growth.  I love how we (the audience) didn’t get introduced to Grace on Earth first and instead learned about him as we went.  It makes the moment when we see Grace being forced onto the ship so much more impactful because, for a lot of the film, we believe that he volunteered to go.  So when we find out that he was really forced, everything changes.  We feel so much more for this character. We think back to the moments before and know that he didn’t even want to be there.  It deepens the moments of self-sacrifice and affects us more as an audience. It makes Grace feel more human.

I believe that if this film were shown in chronological order, I would not care as much.  The mystery and uncertainty of this character, watching basically two different people merge into one, made me care so much more for him.  Not being given all the information at once, but instead being able to piece him together, was some really good storytelling.

I think the biggest point that shows us how Grace has grown is when he is on his way back to Earth and finds out that Rocky is in danger.  Grace could just leave it and go home, but he chooses to give all that up to save Rocky.  This man made that choice knowing full well that he will never see his home again!

He went back for him!

If that isn’t character development, then I don’t know what is!

A lot got me in this film. I came out of the cinema drenched in my own tears and, let’s be really honest, this film would be completely different if it wasn’t Ryan Gosling.

He did such an incredible job playing this role.

He managed to keep the serious tones while making Grace feel human and funny.  If anyone else tried to play this role, they would either make Grace too funny and lose the plot and emotion, or they would go too serious and the plot would still be there, but my connection to the character would be gone.

Ryan made Grace feel so real and relatable. Such amazing casting!

I feel so sorry for the ones who don’t get to experience this film in the cinema because seeing that beautiful film on the big screen and being surrounded by the music was an amazing experience.  Having a space where people can come together and watch as these characters overcome differences is so impactful, experiencing all these emotions with people you don’t know.

Like the moments when everything just goes quiet and we are all sitting there together in that moment.

Even at the end of the film, when the lights turn on, you look around and can see how everyone reacted to the film.

It’s such a great way to build culture.

Like when I went to see this film at the cinema with my brother, we bumped into one of our friends and we all watched it together.  It wasn’t planned and wouldn’t have happened if we had watched it at home.

So that brings my rambling to a close.

I apologise if anyone was in desperate need of the bathroom before reading this review. Honestly, guys, I’m so sorry I didn’t provide you all with snacks!

But jokes aside, I love this film so much, and that’s from someone who isn’t a big sci-fi fan. This film has made it onto my Top 4 on Letterboxd, and I just can’t wait to watch it again once it’s out on streaming.

Go watch it if you haven’t, because it truly is such an amazing film.

Lilia - Gold Award Diploma