by Kate Gifford, Contributor
This review contains spoilers for “Project Hail Mary.”
March 20, 2026, I found myself in my local theater crying over a schoolteacher in space and the most humane rock known to theaters and books.
A few years ago, my dad recommended the novel “Hail Mary Project,” written by Andy Weir. My dad told me it was one of the most emotional books he had ever read, and I scoffed when he said I’d cry while reading it. By the end of the book, I had gone on a roller coaster of emotions. I’d cried no fewer than four times, and I’d fallen in love with the characters of Dr. Ryland Grace, Rocky and humanity.
Weir had written a story about an alien with a love for humanity and a personality that made me desperately root for him. Grace made me feel brave with his ability to make the best out of every situation he found himself in, and when push came to shove, he really did want to care for others.
With how much I loved the book, I walked into the theaters on opening night feeling nervous. After all, book-to-film adaptations do not have a great reputation right now, and I had high hopes for this one. Grace was quickly introduced, and he felt familiar. His personality and choices are almost identical to the character I loved in the book. You can see Grace’s love for his Earth students and his concluding love for his Erid students, his eventual stubborn determination, and his cowardice turning into reluctant heroism. It is all there, reflected in his interactions with others, his dialogue with Rocky and even in his clothing choices; it felt like him.
The same was almost true of Rocky: his quick attachment to Grace, his loyalty and his lively personality. But not everything is exactly as it is in the book. We don’t really go into detail about what drives Rocky. By the end of the movie, we know almost nothing about Rocky’s home or culture, and we miss many personal details about his life.
A welcome change is that Eva Stratt is a much more developed character in the film. Her scene of singing “Sign of the Times” by Harry Styles was not in the book, yet it is one of my favorite moments for her movie character’s arc.
The movie is also visually stunning! Director Christopher Miller discussed on X that not a single green screen was used; instead, they built the entire rocket as a real set and Rocky as a puppet. What couldn’t be built, such as the auroras or the stars, was created with incredible animation or VFX.
Unfortunately, many of the characters in the book are given only a few seconds on screen, reduced to a short quip. We don’t really see Grace building relationships with the other astronauts, which is the whole reason their deaths are supposed to be impactful.
The film also misses a lot of technical information that would help showcase Grace’s personality and build the story’s reality. The book has a basis in reality with the science and story. The movie feels like it lost that grounding and is more fantastical. While both are good ways to tell the story, they’re not one-to-one comparable.
But back at my local theater, when the credits rolled, I felt a love for life and humanity and enough courage that maybe even I could go to space if I had Grace and Rocky by my side. Yes, there were a few changes from the book, but that’s always going to be the case when doing a film adaptation. The few changes I noticed didn’t compromise the story’s emotion, and in most cases, they helped build the movie’s plot and bridge the gap between a book and a film. To use Rocky’s own words, I would say it’s “amaze amaze amaze” whether it’s your first introduction to the story or you’ve read the book.
