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Stratt in the movie and Stratt in the book are two different characters. In the film, she's nicer and more of a team player: she buys the "free" hats for everyone, she sings karoake when Grace asks her to and she doesn't even blow up the ice caps! Also, I got the impression that she and Grace were in love in the movie, but in the book I felt like they just had a platonic/boss-employee/experimenter-lab rat relationship.
I think they wanted to humanise her, but I kinda see the book character as more human than the movie character, because while the film makes it very clear that she is totally justified in sending Grace to space (that rhymes!), the book leaves it to the reader to decide–yes, she fulfils her goal of returning the Sun to full luminance, but at what cost? How many people died as a result of her paving the Sahara and melting the ice caps? How many species went extinct? With such a high death toll, was it even worth it? The ambiguity of her morality is what feels so real about her; she is not an arbiter of truth, she does not always know if her risks will lead to success, but she knows someone has to take the risks and be okay with everything failing. She is not a vessel for the story's moral–she is a bold but flawed person.
In the film, the worst thing she does is be a bit rude and send Grace to die (oh also she accidentally kills the whole scientist team but that gets totally glossed over), which feels like a great sacrifice for her considering the fact that their relationship was so close in the film. Yes, she liked him in the book, but she admits she doesn't even respect him and gets super mad at him when she launches him to Tau Ceti. She always seems to make good decisions.
Which brings me to my next point: by the end of the book, Grace still hates her for sending him to his death and is plotting his revenge (i.e. what insults to use) for when he gets back to Earth. Then he discovers the Taumoeba can escape xenonite, flies over to Rocky, blah blah blah and he never brings up Stratt again. Between trying to save Erid and trying not to die from scurvy, he has too much on his mind to be getting mad at her. And since the book is from his perspective, we never find out how she feels about him now–if she misses him, if she's proud of him, if she feels guilty for essentially killing him. The lack of closure emphasises Grace's character development as he is willing to risk his own life to save Earth and Erid without getting the reward of telling off Stratt or knowing how much he really helped Earth. Half the population could be dead for all we know.
So it's interesting that the movie decides to cut to Stratt watching Grace's video diaries, looking at the videos of a man she thought was long-dead telling her, "You were always right".
The film undercuts Grace and Stratt's sacrifice in favour of giving closure to the audience, which I find makes it more fun of a film, but it is also the reason I prefer the book's characterisations. What do you think?