Project Hail Mary — spoilers ahead.
Amaze. Amaze. Amaze.
I loved this movie: the ingenuity, the humor, the friendship between Grace and Rocky.
A feel-good story that left me feeling good—and hurting a little.
Grace saves Earth. But he chooses not to return to it.
I keep thinking about that. He was drugged and forced onto the mission. His extraordinary usefulness to humanity was not the same as being loved by it.
Before the mission, his scientific ideas had cost him professionally. He found purpose and connection teaching children, but even there, he seemed to tread carefully. Some questions were for their parents. Some ideas came with consequences.
The movie does the delicate work of showing the political landmines teachers navigate in public schools during times of high social pressure. It also shows how, even within scientific communities, unpopular ideas can make someone vulnerable to derision and exclusion. Dr. Grace is not immune to the consequences of living in a society with strong hierarchies. He has suffered them.
With Rocky, he finds a connection. They are curious together. They are scientists together, driven to study and solve a common problem. And they grow to care for each other.
And he chooses—major spoiler alert—a different life altogether on Erid.
He gets to be a science teacher.
There, he is an actual alien, different from everyone around him. Yet the Eridians welcome him enthusiastically and trust him to teach science to their children.
Somehow, the reverse feels impossible.
We don’t know everything about Eridian society. We are left to project our hopes and dreams that an advanced, space-traveling society would also be socially advanced. Star Trek showed us something different: a federation of planets with hierarchies and conflicts included.
But in this story, what we see is a community that makes room for Grace.
He is celebrated and highly valued.
Ah! Now I understand why my child wanted me to watch it and why it touched them so deeply. It’s about acceptance: a community making space for us and valuing us even when we are very different, rather than using our differences to devalue us and elevate themselves. And now I understand why it appealed to me so deeply, too.
There is something almost childlike in the warmth of the Eridian world: the openness, the curiosity, the uncomplicated delight of learning together. I wonder if that is part of why it feels so hopeful. And why it hurts a little, too.
Rocky is childlike in his enthusiasm.
Again! A small critique of how humans develop and learn to suppress enthusiasm because social strategy is considered a more valuable skill.
Grace saves the world that sent him away, coercing him to work for it and resigning him to his death. Yet he finds a home somewhere else.
We do see beauty in humans, too. We see the touching parts. It is our institutions and societal pressures that come under critique.
Put into a survival scenario, we can be red in tooth and claw.
Erid is delightfully free of that.
Artificially so, perhaps, because this is an appealing fairy tale of a movie.
That is a beautiful ending. I wouldn’t wish a different one for him. But there are shadows beneath its warmth.
Tonight’s pairing: wonder, affection, and the uncomfortable ache of a happy ending.
How do you feel about it? Do you celebrate the happy ending? Or do you taste some of the bitters?
Beam me up, Scotty.
Life is intelligent here on Earth, but it is exhausting and full of problems.
