Okay, slightly more serious though, the soundtrack.
Something jumped out at me tonight while I was driving home and listening to the Project Hail Mary soundtrack after rewatching the movie. And it was the song that plays while Grace is preparing Yao Li-Jie’s and Olesya Ilyukhina’s bodies for their final words and send off into space.
The song is called “You Were Loved (Burial)”
And I can’t stop thinking about it because it’s not “You were heroic” or “you were brave”. It was “you were loved.”
Grace sees bravery as something you’re born with. He says it to Yao, that he doesn’t have the ‘bravery’ gene that they have, and Yao corrects him in that moment and states it’s a matter of finding someone to be brave for.
And listen I know others have talked about how Grace learns to be brave because of Rocky. And, yes, it’s true. But I don’t think thats the complete message the were wanting us to take away from this movie.
See, the difference between “You were brave” and “You were loved” is the difference between “I” and “We”. Yao and Ilyukhina weren’t just brave. The song emphasizes that it’s not the bravery that mattered, but the fact that others loved them. We see it in their photos. Surrounded by children, loved ones, family, friends-
And then there’s Grace, in his one photo.
Standing by himself.
Alone.
But Grace loved his kids, you’d say. And yes, the children are so so important to him. But while they love him as a teacher, Mr. Grace, they don’t love him as the whole. They don’t know Ryland. They don’t know Dr. Grace. And Grace has no partner, no immediate family… he is liked. And that’s where it ends.
When he meets Rocky though? It changes. Slowly, yes, but surely. This little alien that knows him as someone clever, and smart, and clumsy, and bad at math. Grace is not just “the science human”. Grace is his friend. An equally valid form of love- platonic.
And what happens, when Grace for once gets the same love he gets? He does EVA’s on a ship experiencing active gravity, he leaps off to grab the predator collector even at the risk of dying, he nearly kills himself with chemical burns (in the book) carrying Rocky to get him back in his closure, he gives up his chance of going home, KNOWING he will die shortly after dropping off Rocky at Erid, if he even manages to find Rocky.
And we can say that it’s growth of Grace, learning to be brave and not a coward for the sake of his friend. But that’s once again focusing on the one person. The ‘I’.
You. Were. Loved.
This movie at its core is about how humanity is to love and be loved.
Grace didn’t suddenly develop a bravery gene. He was given what he so desperately needed- love. And it was only because he received it that he could make the choices he did.
He didn’t leap for the predator catcher because of bravery. He leapt because he was loved.
Rocky didn’t break through to Grace’s side because he was brave. He forced himself to go into Grace’s atmosphere because he was loved.
Grace didn’t pull the emergency air lock lever for Rocky because he was brave. He let himself be injured because he was loved.
And most importantly- Grace didn’t choose certain death to rescue Rocky because he was brave. It was not an act of bravery.
It was an act of love.
And that love could only exist because, for the first time, someone loved him.
And when he finally accepts that he will die, he becomes a hero like Yao and Ilyukhina were. All because he was loved.
THIS.
A movie called Project Hail Mary and a main character with the last name Grace... You cannot blame me for bringing Christianity into this. And I will never be normal about it.
Because no, this concept is the basic core of the Christian faith. Because God extends grace to us, we can extend grace onto others. Because Christ loved us, to the point where he was willing to lay down his own life for us in one of the most gruesome and heinous ways that humans have ever dreamt up, we outpour that love onto others.
But humans are not masters of this. We fall short, we have bad days, we lose our temper, we make bad choices... But what is important is the ideal and striving to love as fully as we are capable. And in return, others pour into us. And in the end that is what matters, what we should remember. Even if we lose sometimes, we end up gaining back more than what was lost. Love triumphs over all.
1 John 4:7-12
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7, 13
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Edit: Even more, because I got in the shower after hitting reblog and more thoughts crammed themselves into my mind as they tend to do.
The story of Project Hail Mary is of a man who is lost in terms of identity rising into a new identity. And I'm not talking about just after waking up in a space ship in another star system. Ryland Grace had built himself up in empty, temporary identities his entire life and he was constantly searching for a place for himself. And he only finds himself by recieving the love that Rocky extends to him and responds by projecting that love back outwards, even to people who he knows wronged him.
This allegorically mirrors how a person might come to be a christian. We wander about looking for validation in everything and anything; put our identity in what we do, where we work, the clothes we wear, who we surround ourselves with... you name it. But then God and Christ finds its way into our hearts, minds and lives with unconditional, sacrificial love. And we are forever changed. Our identity now is in Christ. Our identity now is that we are loved by God.
This is the really cool part. Our reason for everything is imitiation of Christ. The identitifier "christian" literally means "little Christs". In essence, because we are loved by God in all of our messy humanity, the response should be to do the same unto others and to reflect that love back to God, much like how the moon reflects the light of the sun. Love is not passive.
