I Saw 'Project Hail Mary' Without Reading the Book First and I'm Glad I Did

I went in without reading the book. No regrets.

I watched Project Hail Mary on 70mm, and that detail matters. There's something about that format that makes a film feel heavier, more textured, more cinematic in the truest sense of the word. The grain, the scale, the way light hits the screen differently. For a story set mostly in the cold silence of deep space, it was exactly the right way to experience it. If you have the option, seek out the best format available. This is not a couch movie.

The film follows Ryland Grace, a school teacher turned astronaut who wakes up alone on a spacecraft with no memory of how he got there or what his mission actually is. What unfolds is part mystery, part survival story, and part something genuinely unexpected that I won't spoil here.

A little context on where I'm coming from

I came into this one with some history with Andy Weir. I read The Martian before seeing the film, and that experience stuck with me. Weir has this specific gift for making problem-solving feel thrilling, for making science feel human, and for writing characters who are funny and competent and quietly heroic without ever feeling like superheroes.

I do own the Project Hail Mary novel. It's sitting in my TBR pile right now, honestly a little guilty about it. The last few years I've been a slower reader, life got busy, and reading kind of fell to the side even though it's a format I genuinely love for storytelling. Getting back to it has been something I've been working on, and Enjoying Lately exists partly because of that. So I went into this film without having read the book first, which is a first for me with Weir, and it was a different kind of experience. A good one.

If you haven't read the book either, go in as blind as you possibly can. If you have, I'm curious how you felt about the adaptation. Either way, the book is moving up my list.

What works really well

Ryan Gosling's performance is the anchor of this entire film, and it's some of his best work. He carries long stretches mostly alone on screen, talking to himself, problem-solving out loud, slowly piecing together who he is and why he matters. It never drags because of him. He makes you care immediately, and he keeps you there.

And then there's Rocky.

Rocky is a faceless alien species shaped roughly like a rock, communicates through sound frequencies, and has absolutely no business being as funny and lovable as it is. The friendship that develops between Ryland and Rocky is the heart of the movie, and it sneaks up on you. One moment you're watching a tense, high-stakes science scene, and the next you're laughing out loud at an alien who has just discovered sarcasm. The comedy lands without ever undercutting the drama. That balance is genuinely hard to pull off and this film does it with ease.

The structure is non-linear, moving between the present mission and flashbacks that slowly reveal how Ryland ended up where he is. It works better than it has any right to. Each piece of the backstory surfaces at exactly the right moment, and by the time the full picture comes together, the emotional weight of it hits harder because you've been waiting for it.

Where it loses some momentum

The pacing slows in the middle stretch, and the final act has a handful of moments where you feel certain the film is about to end, only for it to keep going. It happened more than once, and while I was never bored, I was aware of it. A tighter edit in the back half would have elevated this from a very good film to a near-perfect one.

Final thoughts

Project Hail Mary is one of the more genuinely satisfying science fiction films in recent years. It's smart without being cold or inaccessible. It's funny without being silly. And by the end, it earns an emotional payoff that I did not fully see coming, even while watching it build. The kind of film that sticks with you on the drive home and makes you want to talk about it with someone.

It's still in theaters, and the streaming release is being pushed out intentionally. That's actually the right call. See it big. See it loud. Bring someone who hasn't read the book.

And if you have read it, let me know in the comments. I want to know how it compares before I finally get to it.