Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s Project Hail Mary is an exceptionally audience-friendly adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, offsetting the story’s doomsday scenario with lots of jokes, a charismatic lead, and most especially the buddy dynamic between Ryan Gosling’s human protagonist and an alien engineer named Rocky. The film’s light touch has made it a hit, but it also left some of your Next Picture Show hosts wanting more, as we break down in our discussion of the new film before turning to Connections and a companion film that’s as prickly as Project Hail Mary is cuddly: Douglas Trumbull’s 1972 directorial feature debut, Silent Running. Sure, both films explore the idea of a lonely man finding human connection in a non-human companion, the threat of worldwide ecological collapse, and the question of what we owe the Earth and what causes are worth dying for, but each takes a very different approach, to very different effect... as do the several other films we considered pairing with PHM, which we collectively recommend in Your Next Picture Show.

Please share your thoughts about Silent Running, Project Hail Mary, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email or voice memo to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730.

Next Pairing: Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama and David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence

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#518: In a Lonely Space, Pt. 2 — Project Hail Mary