Some wise person has made this point about a lot of modern media: if a product is free, then that product is you. Cinema isn’t free, but you are still the product, being fashioned into a being that tends to consume more movies, instead of into the image and likeness of God.
A similar point of view, but from another angle, is the pithy point of Marshall McLuhan, Catholic thinker and paradoxical movie enthusiast: “the content” of a movie “is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.” A movie is very like a thief who breaks into the soul and distracts reason with a “message,” be it self-sacrifice, forgiveness, or true love. Meanwhile, everything else about the movie is subverting these good themes.
This review of Project Hail Mary, still in theaters, is going to try to tackle two things: an evaluation of the message (overall, a good one) with a caution about the medium.
The plot opens with an imminent catastrophe not only global, but truly universal. A man wakes up from an induced coma on what turns out to be a spacecraft. He gradually remembers, and we discover, that organisms are eating stars, and this means we will all die unless the mission this man happens to be on succeeds: visit the one star in the galaxy that is not dying, discover why, and send the findings back to Earth. Since there’s not enough fuel for a return trip, the three people on the mission are all going to be left in space. Two have died already in suspended animation during the years-long space journey. The survivor, Ryland Grace, eventually remembers that he was coerced onto the spacecraft because of his unique insight into the star-eaters.
In the middle of all this, Grace teams up with a five-legged rock-looking alien he meets, and together they race against time, malfunctions, and physical limitations to find a way to save people, aliens, and stars.
Given the scope of the movie and its large current cultural impact, it is as important as ever to think about McLuhan’s caution. What is said and done by actors in a movie is not, in an important sense, as significant as the combination of action, music, and background that is the medium of movie-making.
This particular movie features several items to be wary of. For instance, it privileges modern science in a disturbing way, not only for Catholics, but even for the many modern people who place absolute values on things like democracy and consent. In this movie, SCIENCE, as determined by a few dozen scientists, not elected leaders, becomes a quasi-Providence. It justifies Grace’s being coerced onto the spaceship, because the TOP SCIENTIST WOMAN determines that it is for the greater good. After all, if the sun keeps cooling off, the mindless millions who don’t know what’s good for themselves will kill one another.
Also, the alien angle is one to be careful of when it comes to our imaginative space as human beings and as Catholics. Although Catholics aren’t forbidden to believe in aliens, the Church has made it clear that if sentient beings other than humans do exist, they must somehow be in need of Jesus Christ’s saving grace, and it is hard to imagine how can this can be when original sin is genetically human.
Furthermore, if there are aliens, they are made by God and are beautiful in the way intelligent and living beings are. Not Rocky. To portray an alien like the one in the film seems to cheapen the beauty and dignity of life versus non-life. The image of a rock alive is potentially harmful to our imaginations. It can subconsciously get us thinking that the difference between life and non-life is not a big deal.
However, even if these concerns about the subliminal effect of this movie are valid, the overt themes are good. Indeed, the moral authority of the those demanding Ryland Grace’s self-sacrifice is questionable, but the value of self-sacrifice (a part of the virtue of fortitude) is not. Furthermore, the nuance of the plot in which Grace has to be physically forced into a situation that he later chooses to embrace is a timely rejection of the unhealthy exaltation of consent as the sole principle of right and wrong in our popular ethics.
Finally, although Rocky is problematic with respect to beauty as a transcendental that describes God (and his creation), the relationship of Rocky and Ryland is a good example of how human beings must love one another: learning to relate to, accommodate, and even love the aliens who are the people we live with.
A review of a space opera that is a Ryan Gosling star vehicle, featuring Gosling in a literal star vehicle, couldn’t end without an evaluation of Gosling’s performance. Perhaps trying too hard and a little complacent in his skills at times, he is nevertheless very good and very funny. The film checks all the boxes of wholesome entertainment: nothing obscene, a good mix of seriousness and levity, and not excessive. If you don’t want to take my word for it, take Thomas Aquinas’s!
It’s a movie to laugh at, and laugh with, a lot. It is a movie to think about at least a little. Just keep that five-legged bandit out!