An Alien, an Octopus, and the Inescapable Grace of God

In watching two recent movies—Project Hail Mary and Remarkably Bright Creatures—I’ve noticed something that might help us understand the much-talked-about “vibe shift” that’s happening in America. If you’re unfamiliar with this trend, it refers to an emerging sense that our long cultural season of irony, nihilism, and performative cynicism may be giving way to something more hopeful. Several media critics have commented on the phenomenon, describing some of our more recent cultural artifacts as “hopecore”—stories marked by resilient sincerity rather than detached despair.¹

But, as I’ll suggest here, our newfound hopefulness bears the marks of a deeper cultural uncertainty. Both films—each of which has met with critical acclaim and popular—lean into this shift’s spirit of optimism, yet their pictures of redemption are somewhat displaced. American culture still longs for transcendence; these stories make that clear. Yet our moral imagination increasingly struggles to see human beings as credible bearers of grace.

I don’t say this as a cynic. I genuinely like both films. They’re hopeful in tone and redemptive in narrative arc. Indeed, even their cynical undertones are reason for hope, so bear with me.

The Alien

Project Hail Mary, based on the book by Andy Weir,² is about a scientist-turned-schoolteacher named Ryland Grace (played by Ryan Gosling), who is recruited by a team of multinational experts to help solve an existential crisis: a heretofore unknown and mysterious entity, what the team dubs “Astrophage,” is eating our Sun. All the stars in our vicinity—except one, Tau Ceti—are being slowly depleted by small, wriggling, black dots. Because of his expertise in molecular biology, Grace helps develop a mission to Tau Ceti, but after an accidental explosion kills the astronauts slated to go, he is forcibly drafted onto the mission himself. He awakens light-years from Earth aboard the Hail Mary, the only survivor of interstellar hibernation and left with a hazy memory.

Eventually, Grace pieces together what’s happened and resigns himself to death and despair. But then he’s met with an alien spacecraft. Through a series of awkward, ingenious, and often comical exchanges, he befriends the craft’s lone alien inhabitant. Grace names him “Rocky,” for his rock-like texture and color. Grace discovers that Rocky, too, is trying to save his homeworld from Astrophage, and that his crewmates also perished en route. Together, the unlikely pair discover a lifeform capable of neutralizing Astrophage and devise a way to send it back to Earth and to Erid, Rocky’s planet.

In the climactic sequence, when things go awry—Grace is knocked unconscious at a crucial moment—Rocky heroically risks his life to make a critical adjustment to the ship. Rocky must leave his protective capsule to rescue Grace, which exposes him to the Hail Mary’s human atmosphere and badly burns him. He survives, but only after a lengthy and painful recovery. After they part ways, Grace, who, for Rocky’s help, now has enough fuel to return to Earth—a hope that he’d previously abandoned—realizes that his friend is in trouble. He discovers that Astrophage can seep through porous surfaces, which, Grace realizes, will prove fatal to Rocky as he makes his way back to Erid. Given the choice between returning home or forfeiting that chance to save his friend, Grace chooses Rocky.

Weir is not a typical science fiction writer. In the book, he goes to great lengths to describe real—or at least plausibly-real—scientific phenomena and imagined technologies. Because of this, it would take much more space to detail every plot twist. Having read the book, I was surprised the filmmakers were able to successfully adapt such a dense story for the big screen.

The story’s appeal, though, lies not in its technical details or speculative science, but in its moral imagination—in the enduring qualities that make life worth living, whether human or alien: friendship, hope, sacrifice, redemption. This comes across in the movie. Grace initially fails to exhibit selfless bravery, refusing to go on the mission that would save the world, a cowardice he later laments. Rocky’s sacrificial courage becomes the catalyst for Grace’s own moral conversion. Grace, in other words, becomes the recipient of grace; the one saved by another’s self-gift becomes capable of self-gift himself.

The Octopus

Netflix’s Remarkably Bright Creatures, starring Sally Field, is based on Shelby Van Pelt’s novel.³ Like Project Hail Mary, I found this movie to be uncommonly hopeful, allergic to the kind of snide pessimism so pervasive in the current zeitgeist. The film doesn’t shy away from life’s harsh realities, but leans into them with a decidedly redemptive tone.

A widowed woman, Tova, works as a night cleaner at a local aquarium in Sowell Bay, a fictional small town in the Pacific Northwest. Though she has a small circle of friends, she lives a largely reclusive life, shaped by a tragic incident decades earlier in which her son died in a boating accident. His unresolved death has left Tova emotionally stranded and quietly alienated from her community. She finds respite in her nightshift at the aquarium, which affords her a solitary, quiet existence. She “befriends” an octopus named Marcellus, and speaks to him about her problems, anxieties, and past. Marcellus, who narrates portions of the film, offers dry insights about Tova and judgments about other visitors to the aquarium, such as unruly schoolchildren whose noisy field trips interrupt his peace.

The story’s other key figure is Cameron, a drifting young man who is searching for the father who abandoned him. Stranded in Sowell Bay when his van breaks down, he takes a job at the aquarium. He and Tova initially dislike one another, but in time, through shared wounds, form an unlikely friendship.

Later, Cameron discovers the man he tracked down is not his father, but merely an old acquaintance of his mother’s. His real father, unbeknownst to him, has been much closer all along. The truth comes through Marcellus. After Cameron angrily tosses a class ring into the aquarium’s dangerous eel tank, Marcellus—already nearing the end of his life—undertakes one final act of daring. Descending into danger, he retrieves the ring and leaves it where Tova will find it. The inscription reveals what had long remained hidden: the ring belonged to Tova’s lost son, Erik, meaning Cameron is not a stranger at all, but her grandson.

Marcellus’ act is not merely clever; it is redemptive in the narrative sense, an intervention that restores memory, identity, and relationship. Tova releases Marcellus back into the bay, where he may live out his remaining time in freedom and peace.

Like Project Hail Mary, the story turns on redemptive gift. Salvation and reconciliation come through self-sacrificial love. In the first case, from an alien; here, from an octopus.

Inescapable Grace

Each of these films, in its own way, shows us grace, and in so doing reminds us that we need it. If there is a vibe shift underway, perhaps it reflects a growing recognition that the world is broken and in need of redemption. We do, in fact—no matter what we’ve tried to make ourselves believe—require saving. What’s striking is not that these stories long for salvation, but that salvation arrives through non-human intermediaries. As a culture, we seem ready to admit our need for help, but perhaps not yet ready to admit, or submit to, a human Savior.

At the end of Remarkably Bright Creatures, Marcellus ends his narration with this observation: “Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.” It’s a touching sentiment and a clever narrative move. But it also subtly reinforces the flattening anthropology so common in our moment—the idea that human beings are simply clever animals among other clever animals.

Still, what Marcellus gets right, and what our culture might be starting to remember, is that human limitations and frailties are real. We are not gods capable of self-definition and self-determination. We need saving. We need grace.

We may travel to the far reaches of space, or plumb the depths of the sea, but the grace we need is found, finally, in Jesus Christ. The beauty of these stories is that they testify, however indirectly, to the astonishing reach of His grace. All things are made by and through Him—alien and octopus alike. The world, with all its strange creatures, real or imagined, is charged with the grandeur of God.

Rocky gets it: “Amaze.”