Film review: ‘Hidden Figures’

The very definition of crowd-pleasing, feel-good
entertainment, the stirring drama “Hidden Figures” celebrates the lives of
three black female mathematicians whose work was essential to getting the first
astronauts into space during the early days of NASA, and whose extraordinary
efforts have been overlooked by history for far too long.

Katherine Johnson (Taraji Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia
Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) are close
friends and workers at NASA, where they’re employed as “computers” — the
somewhat dehumanizing term given to the women who carry out (by hand) the
mathematical calculations that were required to launch those first manned
missions to space.

A gifted geometrist, Katherine is
assigned to assist the Space Task Group, the department led by Al Harrison (Kevin
Costner) that’s in the middle of conducting the operation to put astronaut John
Glenn (a charming Glen Powell) into orbit. Meanwhile Dorothy has been doing the
work of a supervisor for years, but her boss (Kirsten Dunst) is unwilling to
officially grant her the title or the pay that comes with it. Mary wants to
transition into engineering, but faces an uphill battle when she’s told that
the required classes are only offered at a “whites only” school.

Director Theodore Melfi (“St.
Vincent”) tracks the trio’s herculean efforts to prove themselves so essential that
even the threatened white men whose work they’re asked to double check can’t
deny their abilities. Considering that this was all in the early 1960’s when
segregation was still in effect in the South, their achievements were all the
more remarkable.

The script — by Melfi and Allison
Schroeder, and adapted from Margot Lee Shetterly’s
book — is also smart about the way it portrays its era. Here, racism isn’t
propagated solely by slack-jawed KKK members (the type modern audiences can
watch and feel reassured at seeing no similarities to themselves), but by
everyday folks whose condescending and exclusionary behavior is so ingrained
that they can dismiss these women while still asserting themselves as
progressive, tolerant people.

In a formal sense, the film isn’t as groundbreaking as its
remarkable subjects — Melfi mostly sticks to a tried
and true formula, but damned if it doesn’t work. Superb performances from
Henson, Spencer, and Monáe are crucial to the film’s
success; all three actors are magnetic, gifting their characters with vivid,
appealing personalities. Henson gets the most screen time as well as the film’s
only romantic subplot, with a National Guard officer played by Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight”). She plays Katherine with a
quiet, unassuming strength that allows her to command every moment she’s on
screen.

I’ve long been a fan of Monáe’s
music, so I could not be more thrilled about the singer’s blossoming career as
an actor. Between her small but memorable part in “Moonlight” and her
significantly more substantial role here, Monáe has
burst into the movies in a big way. If you’ve ever seen her perform live and
witnessed her incredible ability to command a crowd, the fact that her charisma
effortlessly translates to the screen will come as no great shock. There’s no
question that if she wants to, the singer could be a major movie star.

“Hidden Figures” has the right stuff: inspirational,
irresistible, and immensely satisfying. It’s the kind of film you can take the
entire family to and everyone will leave happy. Bring the kids and, like the
three extraordinary women at the film’s center, they just might come away
feeling that they too can shoot for the stars.

This article appears in Jan 4-10, 2017.