Ryan Gosling: "Project Hail Mary"

This film has two stars: Ryan Gosling and Ryan Gosling's dermal filler. The filler is distracting. It does actually impair one's ability to suspend disbelief. If Gosling would like to become Tom Hanks, then the filler may be a problem.

Another problem is the idea of a trajectory. Gosling's character--Ryland Grace--needs to start in an "embittered" place. It's the love of an alien that allows Grace to really embrace life. But--via Gosling, in this movie--Grace seems immediately charismatic and selfless and charming. (He is a beloved teacher of middle school!) So the movie has Grace move from "likable" to "likable." Not the most satisfying journey.

What happens here? A great deal of nonsense. The sun is dying. There is a special element that could sustain life on Earth. Before his middle-school career, Grace was a trailblazing scientist. For some silly reasons, it emerges that Grace is the one and only human who can save the planet.

Out in space, things seem hopeless until Grace meets an extraterrestrial, Rocky. Grace and Rocky are briefly at odds; Rocky is overbearing, he doesn't believe in privacy, and his manner of ingesting food is grotesque. But time heals everything. Rocky makes a major sacrifice for Grace--which then causes Grace to make a major sacrifice for Rocky. Through his newfound love, Grace has discovered a reason to be alive.

You might sense that I wasn't crazy about this movie. I did like Gosling's performance. If you're in the audience, you're eager to attribute your own feelings to a non-feeling thing. So--you're moved by Gosling--you're looking at a faceless alien--and you immediately transplant your emotional "organ." You conclude that the rock is feeling the thing that you're feeling. This is a well-documented trick in cinema history. But, if it's going to work, the *living* thing in the scene does need to provoke a response. And Gosling provokes a response. He must have been intimidated by this script--because I assume he spent hours and hours acting with a puppet (or something like a puppet). But Gosling does his job. He deserves the buzz.

I would not have signed checks to put this cloying tale on the big screen. The self-indulgent run time is another flaw. Grade: C-.