Review: Hidden Figures

A slightly loose retelling of the true story of the United States’ race to put a man in outer space before Russia does. More specifically it tells the story of NASA’s ‘computers’, humans with tremendous mathematical brains, and particularly the African-American trio of brainy Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), the smart-mouthed Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer). At this point in time, NASA was very, very white, and mostly male-employed. Whilst Jackson strives to become the first African-American engineer at NASA but apparently doesn’t have the right skin colour, Vaughan’s aspirations of becoming a supervisor for the ‘computers’ is met with not much enthusiasm by humourless supervisor Vivian Michael (Kirsten Dunst), whose refusal to be blatantly blurt out her prejudices ain’t fooling anyone. Most prominently featured is widowed mother Katherine Johnson, who is plucked from the ‘computer’ group to work for humourless but fair Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) and the Space Task Group. Here she will play an important mathematical role (or rocket science, pretty much) in ensuring the safety of the upcoming Friendship 7 launch, involving easy-going astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell). That’s if she can manage to squeeze work in between the arduous trek she has to make across buildings to use the ‘coloured’ toilets every day. We’re still in a segregated America, here. Jim Parsons plays Paul Stafford, a snooty NASA math whiz and kiss-arse who makes it pretty clear that he resents Johnson’s intrusion on his work (which she is employed to double-check). Mahershala Ali plays a potential suitor for Johnson.

After the supposed ‘white wash’ of the Oscars in the previous year or two (which I think was a bit overstated, actually), the Academy seemed intent on correcting the record, even giving nominations to unworthy films like the phony and tedious “Fences”. However, then I saw “Moonlight”, and while “Rogue One” was my favourite film of that year, “Moonlight” sure was a worthy winner nonetheless and one of my favourites of 2016. This true story from director Theodore Melfi (“St. Vincent”, with Bill Murray and Naomi Watts) and his co-writer Allison Schroeder (her first big-screen writing gig) is another winning film from 2016, even if none of its three Oscar nominations resulted in an Oscar win. It’s a fascinating true story and irresistible entertainment of a crowd-pleasing, if not superlative nature.

The premise almost sounds like a bad joke: Set in the 1960s, scared that the Commie Russkies will beat them in getting into outer space, the Yanks need to hire African-Americans- women, even!- to do their maths for them. But this is true, it happened, even if the film messes around with the actual timeline of the events. How did I not know this story before? Why hasn’t the story been told before? It’s incredibly important, and an inspiring story for women, African-Americans, human beings in general. Early on I was glad to see the filmmakers address perhaps not a pertinent detail to this specific story, but a welcome one nonetheless: Showing us the obvious awe people must have when hired to work for NASA, especially during those important years in the 50s and 60s. It’s a big freaking deal, I’m sure so even though this film is about more than just NASA, I was glad someone thought to put that detail in there.

I said earlier that this was a winning film, and Taraji P. Henson gives a performance here that truly deserves to be called ‘winning’. A hell of a versatile actress, she’s instantly sympathetic and I think it’s extremely weird and wrong that she wasn’t even graced with an Oscar nomination here, let alone a win (a win that she might’ve even deserved, actually). She definitely plays the big character moment in the film for all it’s worth. Of that moment, I think the film features one too many trips to the bathroom (we get the idea after the second time, guys) leading up to the moment. It gets to the point where a really sad statement sadly gets turned into a running joke, albeit an admittedly kind of cute one if seen out of context for a second. However, Henson owns not only that big moment, but the film itself. She’s absolutely amazing and captivating here. It’s Henson and her character’s story that grab you most of anything in this film. Singer-actress Janelle Monae, like Henson will probably win an Oscar one day I reckon. She was a standout in “Moonlight”, and here too she manages to be terrific, even if her mechanically-minded character is probably the one afforded the least screen time to of the three leads. That girl’s got ‘something’, and lots of it. Of the three leads, it was Octavia Spencer who earned an Oscar nomination, which is actually rather surprising. She’s good as always, but less impressive than the other two and playing the least interesting of the three characters in my opinion.

In a supporting cast that finds probably more time for the ubiquitous Mahershala Ali than he won the Oscar for in “Moonlight”, the three standouts are Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, and rather surprisingly Jim Parsons. Costner is perfectly cast, Dunst does solid, humourless work, but I have to admit it’s Parsons that probably stood out the most perhaps because I was worried he’d be too jarring a presence here. I have no idea if Parsons can play anything other than Sheldon, but for his role here the less admirable qualities of everyone’s favourite (borderline personality disorder-afflicted) geeky scientist are perfect. It proves clever casting and successful acting. Glen Powell doesn’t look a bit like astronaut John Glenn (who was much older at the time), but is persuasive through his performance. I really hope the bit here where Glenn comes over to the three women to talk to them is based on truth. If it is, John Glenn is awesome. If not, it doesn’t detract from the film.

Some (and let’s just go right ahead and say it’s gonna be Spike Lee, because it’s always Spike Lee) will see this biopic as too formulaic and not reactionary enough. I didn’t care about that. All I know is that this is a good and important story, well-told. Corny? Yes, but only a little. Definitely among my top 10 films of the year, Taraji P. Henson is fabulous, and I feel ashamed I hadn’t learned of the story before. Must-see.

Rating: B