Something I really like in the PHM movie is Grace’s relationship with talking about death throughout the movie. He doesn’t avoid it entirely, but whenever Grace can talk around death instead of acknowledging it directly, he does.
During Yao and Ilyukhina’s funeral, he can’t bring himself to say that he’ll make sure they didn’t die in vain/die for nothing. When talking to Stratt, he can say that they all know they’re going to die, but struggles when saying that it must be hard for Stratt to ask “everyone to…you know”.
When Rocky asks what will happen to him after the mission is complete, Grace talks about stretching his food out and doesn’t directly acknowledge that he’s going to die until Rocky explicitly asks for confirmation that he’s going to die. And after that, he immediately defaults back to talking around it (“I know I’m not going home, I know why, and it’s okay”).
He has the easiest time explicitly talking about death when he feels less like it’s directly about him / less like an immediate issue (“and the astronauts…die in space?” “and they all know they’re going to die” “but I die in 30 years”). Even during the scene where Stratt is asking him to go on the mission, he says “you’re asking me right now to give up my life”, not “you’re asking me to die”.
The choices he makes in how he talks about death feel very intentional and meaningful, because even though ultimately he’s talking about the same thing, his avoidance and his clever ways of talking around it are SUCH a good reflection of his fears.
Especially as a complement to his avoidance of telling Rocky the truth, his line about how “there’s no harm in pretending for a little while”, and his admittance that his ex was right about him not wanting to live in the real world.
It’s just a writing and acting choice that I absolutely ADORE and it’s such a great detail in the movie to further show us Grace’s character. Especially as we see him settle more and more into his bravery, the moments where he does risk his life, and ultimately his choice to go back for Rocky, even though it means accepting his death. Amaze amaze amaze movie with amaze amaze amaze writing 🙂↕️
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