‘Project Hail Mary' Is a Near Perfect Adaptation – Review

When a book as beloved as “Project Hail Mary” gets adapted for the screen, it’s understandable that devout fans get nervous.

How can a screen depiction capture the humor and heart present in Andy Weir’s prose? Who could possibly portray Ryland Grace with the nuance he requires? Can the intricate arc of Grace and Rocky be grasped in under three hours?

Well, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller hardly leave room to worry. The opening few minutes of their “Project Hail Mary” so flawlessly capture how it feels to be Grace, who awakes in space with no memory of how he got there, nor who he is.

As it does in the book, the audience arrives on the cusp of Tau Ceti with Ryan Gosling, who takes on the mammoth role of Ryland Grace. After over a decade in an induced coma, Grace rises from his slumber, understandably panicked, fearful, and unable to speak. Lord and Miller let you know immediately that this film won’t be all tension and terror; it’ll be funny. Gosling flops off the bed, crawls on his forearms, and crashes through the ship, completely unaware of his surroundings.

If you’ve read the book and are familiar with Gosling’s filmography, the announcement that casting directors Nicole Abellera and Jeanne McCarthy chose him to be their Grace might’ve been unsurprising. There are likely zero candidates more qualified for the role than he.

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As we saw in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” – and his countless other roles throughout the years – Gosling knows how to work comedy into tragedy (he’s a three-time Oscar nominee for a reason) in a way that never feels contrived. Lord and Miller take that humor present in the book and amplify it tenfold, and never at the detriment to the warmth Weir so carefully threaded inside his novel.

Whilst the images of Grace bumbling through the ship, uttering nonsense as he learns to use his voice again, are humorous, they’re also heartbreaking, which – as we flashback to the past and learn how he got to where he is now – grows even more earth-shattering as the clock ticks by.

Part of the reason he got there? Eva Stratt. Played artfully by the Academy Award-nominated Sandra Hüller, whose stern disposition is the antithesis of Grace. When Hüller and Gosling share the frame, they are a delight. They work so well together, and you see them getting the best out of each other’s performance. While most of Gosling’s arc happens in space alongside Rocky – we’ll get to that – the work he does on Earth, alongside Hüller, is gentle, done with a deft hand, mostly internal, but entirely captivating.

Although her narrative takes up a significantly smaller portion of the 156-minute runtime, Stratt has her own mountains to climb, and Hüller makes sure her character, who could easily be perceived as one-dimensional, has all the depth and nuance you see in the book, even with a sampling of her moments cut.

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These flashbacks serve as fragments of the puzzle that Grace uses to piece together both his identity and the mission at hand. He slowly begins to remember his role as a scientist, the breakthroughs he made on Earth, and what he must do to help save his planet from Astrophage, the organism he led the research on, which is slowly infecting and dimming nearby stars.

Grace isn’t on this mission alone for long. The heart of the story lies in the relationship between Grace and Rocky, the alien astronaut from 40 Eridani, a planet in another solar system. The two cross paths near Tau Ceti, where, in the book, Rocky has been waiting for 46 years after his 23 fellow crew members sadly die from the radiation.

This small detail is skipped over in the film, as are a few of the more intimate moments between Rocky and Grace, which are the only things preventing this from being a completely perfect adaptation. Moments that hit like a ton of bricks in the pages of Andy Weir’s novel fly by in a flash, but there are plenty of things that completely lift Weir’s book above and beyond which make up for it.

Namely, the aesthetic of “Project Hail Mary.” Lord and Miller’s vision is gorgeous, not just for the craftsmanship of the titular ship, but also for Rocky’s and Tau Ceti. It is unbelievable what they accomplish. Rarely, when a film’s production budget is as high as this, do you see every penny, but every single cent is on screen in “Project Hail Mary.”

Greig Fraser has given a masterclass in the role of cinematographer, bringing the stunning work of production designer Charles Wood to life. Lord and Miller made it a point not to use a green or bluescreen in the process of making the film, building the ship as a set, and choosing to make Rocky so he wasn’t something Gosling had to imagine; he was really there.

The benefit of doing this is that Rocky and Grace’s relationship feels believable. Rocky doesn’t have a face, only a carapace and a few legs/arms to emote with, but James Ortiz, the puppeteer and voice behind Rocky, does such an incredible job that you never have to imagine for yourself how he is feeling. He is as complex, warm, and resilient as he is in the book, and Ortiz brings him to life with the care required. If the relationship between Grace and Rocky fails, you can have all the stunning cinematography and practical effects in the world, but the story’s profound message will never land. What a relief that it does.

Even with intimate knowledge of the book, Lord and Miller’s imagining will have you holding your breath, shedding tears, and sighing with relief. They have breathed new life into the story and into these characters in a way that doesn’t feel like a cheap way to sell tickets, but a whole new experience on top of the already perfect book.

It moves at a pace despite the runtime, and though you wish you had more time to breathe with some of the moments, it is impossible to come away from “Project Hail Mary” not smiling ear to ear, with a tear running down your cheek.

‘Project Hail Mary’ Release Date

“Project Hail Mary” hits theaters on March 20, 2026.

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This story was originally published March 10, 2026 at 9:01 AM.