Welcome to HPL's film and television blog, highlighting staff-recommended movies or television.
STAFF CONTRIBUTOR: Erick, Public Services Assistant
The science-fiction film Project Hail Mary took Hollywood and the nation by storm when it opened last month. It was projected to make up to $55 million in the United States and Canada in its opening weekend. Instead, it made $80.6 million on its way to $322 million so far, and critical reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, including a 95% positive consensus on the Rotten Tomatoes review site.
Based upon a novel by Andy Weir, who also wrote The Martian (which also became a well-received film), the film stars Ryan Gosling (Barbie, Blade Runner 2049) as a man who wakes up on an interstellar spacecraft. The less said about the plot, the better - I started the book not knowing anything about it, and I attended the film with friends that knew nothing about it, and we agreed that our enjoyment was higher than if we had been spoiled ahead of time.
If you've already read the book, rest assured - the film is 99.9% faithful to the book, an astonishing achievement (and the 0.1% is understandable given that it's an adaptation). I had worried that they would change the ending, and they didn't; I was also pleasantly surprised by other lesser aspects of the book that made their way into the film, including a brief, fun allusion to The Beatles.
If you haven't yet read the book, you can also rest assured, for several reasons. If you like sci-fi, this is in the same realm as Arrival and Interstellar - a thinking person's film in that it assumes that the viewer is smart. If you aren't a sci-fi fan, that's okay too - maybe this is the one you can try! I attended with a family, and their fifteen-year-old girl was drawn into the story. She said afterwards that it was in her top three films of all time, possibly number one!
HPL has something for every reader, from regular print, large print, Playaway (portable audiobook), ebook and digital audio--also in Spanish! Visit the library catalog to get your hands on a copy of Project Hail Mary.