Ryan Gosling confesses: love has a name

I couldn't care less about outer space - total darkness where you float and explode if you don't wear a helmet? I prefer the beach. But Ryan Gosling has managed to make me look at that array of neutrinos, radiation and dark matter with a certain fondness. In his new film “Salvation Project”(“Project Hail Mary” is its original title) he is sent into space in order to save humanity from a slowly dying sun.

Gosling plays a high school teacher with no aspirations but a brilliant mind. Out of laziness, lack of ambition and lack of motivation, Dr. Grace (the pun in the film is constant) refuses to take advantage of his abilities and qualifications, as he has a PhD in molecular biology.

When he is told about Project Salvation and all that it implies, the protagonist refuses to take part in it. Until his curiosity piqued, he gets involved, on a theoretical level, in this mission to rescue the human race. But reality knocks at the door of this man, who can no longer hide behind his hypotheses. He is asked to take a risk, to risk himself, as a person.

Find a by whom

Dr. Grace's reaction, made up with excuses implying that he is not prepared, is understandable: Why is he going to risk his life? More specifically, for whom?

And therein lies the key to this film, which, although not explicitly mentioned at any point in the film, is summed up in a phrase that Christ said more than two thousand years ago: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). But these “friends” must be identified. One does not sacrifice oneself for “humanity” in such an abstract sense that it approaches nothingness. Love has a name. God also indicated it through the prophet Isaiah: “I have called you by name” (Isaiah 43:1).

It is a dogmatic truth that Christ knows each one of us personally, since he is true God and redeemed us by dying on the Cross for us in a concrete way, thinking of each one of us.

Love is concrete, in short. This is also captured in “Project Salvation”, where Dr. Grace only understands the meaning of sacrifice when he gives it a name and, as a breath of fresh air, does not do so through a romantic relationship.

Ryan Gosling has not only starred in and produced a cinematic masterpiece, he has also come to remind us from space that love, to be called love, must be concretized in a name. Christ didn't save humanity, he saved you and me. Affirmative.