In Space, No One Should Hear Your Glib Jokes

In 2006, Ryan Gosling, then in his twenties, starred in a tough-minded, low-budget drama called “Half Nelson,” in which he played a middle-school teacher hobbled by a crack addiction. Years later, the actor, now a fully fledged star, blasted off into space; the film was the Neil Armstrong drama “First Man” (2018), and it climaxed with a weepy reconstruction of the 1969 moon landing. Now, in “Project Hail Mary,” Gosling has come full circle: he is Ryland Grace, a middle-school teacher who blasts off into space.