Two movies about unlikely friendships and learning from people different than yourself — it’s Project Hail Mary vs. The Intern.
One is a glossy, emotional sci-fi flick about a man waking up alone in space on a mission to save Earth. The other is a Nancy Meyers comfort movie about a retired widower who becomes a senior intern at a fast-growing startup.
It’s all about how the right person can pull you out of your own patterns. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) and Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway) are both stuck—not wrong, but stuck—and what makes their stories compelling is that someone with a completely different outlook comes in and disproves their ideas about themselves.
In Project Hail Mary, what starts as an impossible, solitary mission becomes interplanetary collaboration that allows Ryan Gosling and Rocky to save their species. In The Intern, that same kind of relationship helps Anne Hathaway realize she doesn’t have to do everything herself and that letting people in might actually make her better at what she does.
The episode also gets into why friendship stories like this hit harder than we give them credit for. Not everything has to be about romance to be life-changing. Both films show how connection can pull someone out of isolation, offer perspective, and lead to real growth.
And while Project Hail Mary delivers the big, heroic, saving the world swings, The Intern ultimately comes out ahead. Its central relationship feels more grounded, more human, focusing on two people with full lives, experiences, and opinions.
