At one point, in Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Project Hail Mary, someone asks if they know when a hug ends. “You just know,” comes the response from Dr Ryland Grace, a scientist from earth, trying to devise a way to save the Sun. After the film, my first thought was if Lord and Miller’s film knew when to stop mollycoddling its audience. Why else would a competent film adapted from a bestselling novel of the same name by renowned author Andy Weir, starring an immensely watchable Ryan Gosling (playing Ryland Grace), triggering laughs and tears feel almost immediately forgettable after leaving the theatre? A film can be ‘good’ by any number of metrics, but it’s a certain degree of serendipity galvanising good films, elevating them into an authentic and a moving experience. Even the tears in Project Hail Mary feel like the result of a large assembly line, which is never a good sign. 

Such films are agonising to write about because they’re well-made films, nicely-acted too; most of it is in place. But there’s still a gnawing feeling of what more it could have been. Invariably, I found myself comparing Project Hail Mary with The Martian (2015) – the last Andy Weir novel to be adapted for the big screen by Ridley Scott, starring Matt Damon. Scott’s film had the light feet found in Weir’s text, also delivering........

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