March 23, 2026 · Watch the official trailer
It is easy, and often reductive, to say that a film does not work without one key actor or performer doing something specific to make the narrative function.
Whether it is a part written for a particular person or a performance that elevates the material as a whole, casting can make or break the quality of a motion picture. That becomes even more true when a narrative forces one actor to play against very little at all — like Tom Hanks stranded on an island with a volleyball in “Cast Away” or Sandra Bullock acting opposite revolutionary visual effects in the Academy Award-winning “Gravity.”
Films like that demand the right person at the center, and “Project Hail Mary,” the long-anticipated studio blockbuster inspired by Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, is one such film.
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and adapted for the screen by Drew Goddard, who previously brought Weir’s “The Martian” to theaters, the film places Ryan Gosling in the largely unenviable position of spending much of its running time isolated in space. Gosling stars as Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher with a doctorate in molecular biology who is tasked with traveling into deep space to stop the sun from dying.
Goddard’s screenplay is largely faithful to the source material, though it occasionally struggles to balance its comedic and dramatic impulses. Even so, “Project Hail Mary” succeeds because Gosling carries each moment with the right degree of relatability, grounding a much larger-than-life science-fiction story in something recognizably human.
There is a unique gravitas to Gosling’s performance as Grace that leans into just how overwhelmed and out of place he feels in space.
That sense of isolation, constantly clashing with a greater sense of purpose, becomes the emotional driving force of the film, and it is only through Gosling delivering a well-rounded, textured performance as the protagonist that “Project Hail Mary” works as well as it does.
Audiences may be surprised to learn that the anthropomorphic rock-like spider creature Grace encounters early in the film — Rocky, as the character comes to be known — is largely a feat of practical wizardry rather than computer-generated imagery. The character was created, designed, and performed by a team of six puppeteers, with lead puppeteer James Ortiz also providing Rocky’s voice.
This approach not only allows Lord and Miller to have Rocky interact with the film’s fully realized sets in real time, but it also gives Gosling a tangible screen partner for much of the film rather than forcing him to emote into the void.
As a result, his reactions to discovering and communicating with Rocky feel more immediate and authentic, and the natural chemistry he develops with a puppet evokes the enduring magic of practical creations like Yoda in the “Star Wars” franchise, as performed by Frank Oz, or the richly realized creatures of Jim Henson’s “The Dark Crystal.”
While the film does not feature much of an ensemble, with Grace’s time on Earth largely conveyed through intermittent flashbacks, “Anatomy of a Fall” star Sandra Hüller provides a compelling counterbalance to Gosling’s more singular turn.
As the head of Project Hail Mary, Hüller delivers a stoic, staccato performance that may read as overly severe to some viewers, but remains dynamically true to the character as written in Weir’s novel. Her presence in these sequences helps ground the film’s broader scientific stakes in something more immediate and human, even as the narrative ultimately returns to Grace’s isolation.
Practical, fully built sets and a near-total absence of green screen help create the world of “Project Hail Mary” in a very realistic fashion, further enhanced by the work of cinematographer Greig Fraser.
Fraser’s precision and attention to detail allow the film to treat its spacecraft as moving in multiple directions simultaneously, so audiences never feel like they are watching space vehicles simply move from left to right.
This creates a richer cinematic visual language that allows audiences to suspend disbelief and more fully connect with the film’s scientifically accurate narrative. That visual inventiveness is further elevated by Lord and Miller, whose background in animation informs a more playful and creative approach to spatial storytelling, adding texture to the film’s layered narrative. Daniel Pemberton’s score further accentuates that immersion, underscoring the tonal duality between the isolation of deep space and the grounded familiarity of Earth.
Although it arrives early in the calendar year, “Project Hail Mary” is likely to be among audiences’ favorite films of 2026 and could surprise come awards season, particularly in technical categories such as Production Design, Cinematography, and Visual Effects, where the artistry behind Rocky’s practical creation should receive strong consideration.
A genuine crowd-pleaser from start to finish, “Project Hail Mary” is both dynamic and epic in scale, with equal charisma and character development that make it a cinematic experience worth seeing on the largest screen possible.
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