3 Thoughts on Project Hail Mary

**contains spoilers**

1. Grace & Rocky - The love story of the decade? Between a science teacher and a....rock alien? It's certainly not what I was expecting to watch. I was very excited to watch this film for a few reasons - one is obviously Ryan Gosling (I will get back to him in a sec), another is that the mostly rave reviews I skimmed were very enticing. But the main reason is because I read The Martian last year and it might be my favorite fiction I read in a long, long time. I vaguely remember the movie - I did like it, but, man, the book is just *incredible*. I've had Project Hail Mary on my list ever since, but decided to watch the movie first because I wanted to be surprised by it. And surprised I was! I had no idea it was about an encounter with an alien! A ROCK ALIEN! And that they form a bond so strong that Grace (Gosling) gives up his entire life on earth to save this little guy. It's so heartwarmingly wonderful I could cry just thinking about it. It's a testament to the filmmaking team that they make this alien so fucking loveable when it's literally a rock. A big part of this chemistry that forms between these two is due to the practical effects of it all. Rocky is the product of incredible puppeteering as opposed to CGI, and I learned that the guy who did the puppetry work (James Ortiz) went to my college and he's only a few years younger than me so we were probably there the same time. He doesn't really look familiar, but that was over 20 years ago. I guarantee you he will be featured in the next alumni magazine that they send out though. Anyway, it's just super cool that they made this work so well, but a LOT of the credit has to be given to Gosling. There are so many ways for this movie to fall apart, but he just commands your attention and makes you care about the story for its entirety. He is the perfect example of someone who takes his work seriously, but doesn't take himself seriously and those are the types of people I love. He's having fun! But he's passionate about what he's doing! And both of those things show in every performance he gives. I also have to mention the costume designer for this knocks it out of the park with all of the funny science t-shirts he wears (my favorite is the t-shirt with the periodic table that reads "I wear this shirt periodically"), and for giving Gosling, once again, an iconic layering piece - I just know we're going to see a bunch of men wearing grandpa cardigans featuring woodland creatures for the rest of the year. 

2. Sign of the Times - I highly doubt I will see a better scene than Sandra Huller singing "Sign of the Times" this year. I would never consider myself a Harry Styles fan, and I was late to discovering this song, but I remember hearing it about a year ago and I thought to myself "wow that is a beautiful, timeless, pop song" without knowing it was Styles. I added it to my Spotify list and have been listening to it regularly since then. But I did not expect to see Huller doing a karaoke version of it in this film. There's a lot of reasons as to why it works so well - Huller's character's stoicism starts to break and you see a tiny part of her humanity, the lyrics are perfect, ("welcome to the final show, hope you're wearing your best clothes", "breaking through the atmosphere, and things are pretty good from here", etc. It literally feels like the song was written for this film), and the way Gosling reacts to her is absolutely perfect. I've had the song in my head since watching this (over a week ago) and it makes me tear up just thinking about this movie. If Huller doesn't use this as her Oscar clip, it will be a mistake. I also think this is a key scene in foreshadowing the end of the film (not the final moments, but the end in which explains how Gosling got on this suicidal mission - it was not his choice but the choice was made for him for the greater good.). We see the bigger picture that is in place and how little one single person's life means in the grand scheme of things. And I think this was the point in the movie when I started to think I might be watching a 5 star film. I rated it 4.5 because I just don't rate movies 5 stars until I've seen them more than once, but I think this might be a perfect film (for reference, I've only rated 16 movies EVER 5 stars. The last one I rated 5 stars? Yup, you guessed it...Drive). 

3. Marcus, Lily, and Company - Outside of Gosling and Huller, there are also a lot of surprising recognizable faces in this. Marcus from The Bear (i.e. my favorite character!) is a security officer who forms a fun bond with Gosling's character. And he has some really funny moments (like the visit to Home Depot). I really love him (real name - Lionel Boyce), so I hope this is just the beginning of big movies for him. But even more surprising is that Milana Vayntrub is in this! Most know her as the AT&T girl, Lily, from all the commercials - I looked it up and she did 160 commercials for them???? That can't be right? Holy shit! But she has been in some films like Werewolves Within, which is a film I didn't really like but any sane person will develop a HUGE crush on Vayntrub from that movie because she is SO HOT in it. When she shows up in this, I didn't really think it was her. I thought it was just a girl that looked like her, and then she speaks with a Russian accent and I thought "ok it's definitely not her" and thought I was correct in that statement until I sat down to write this post (haha!). Apparently she's fluent in Russian! Some other recognizable faces: Ken Leung and the woman who was also in F1 that I recognize because her last name is Kingsman, which I, for some reason, think is funny (because I love the Kingsman movies! Duh!).