It's a poignant history of more than civil rights.
Hidden Figures
Grade: B+
Director: Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent)
Screenplay: Allison Schroeder, Melfi, based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly
Cast: Taraji Henson (Think Like a Man), Octavia Spencer (The Help)
Rating: PG
Runtime: 127 min
by John DeSando
“Every time we get a chance to get ahead they move the finish line. Every time.” Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae)
The pre-launch action prior to the late John Glenn's epic orbit in 1962 is uniquely lensed through the points of view of three black women who, as math-based NASA computers, were instrumental in the success of the project. Hidden Figures goes beyond the romance of the history to touch on multiple cultural challenges with soft, fuzziness and smarts.
On one level, this biopic hammers home the stupidity of segregation especially when it requires math genius Katherine (Taraji P. Henson) to spend 40 minutes to go to the "colored" toilet. Well, launch honcho Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) takes care of that problem by tearing down the sign and with it the prejudice under attack in the Civil Rights Movement.
Costner embodies the rational but humane spirit of NASA, which, like him, needs to get the job done regardless of social inequities, as leaders like him reach beyond computation to bigger issues like beating the Russians in the space race. His cool but caring and global instincts mirror President Kennedy's drive to succeed regardless of the civil rights turmoil.
On a second level, Hidden Figures tackles the second-class citizenship of women, who despite capabilities as powerful as those of men, are excluded from meetings that would put them in charge of the rapidly-changing computations especially about the tricky re-entry going from parabolic to elliptical or the other way in a dance with death. I'm being unfairly flip because the heart of this drama is not math but the right of all humans to be equal.
The premise of the film with brilliant ladies marginalized until they direct their individual fates is an apt metaphor for oppressed and undervalued people.
On a third level, this entertaining drama deals with the colossal emergence of computers, in this case giant mainframe IBMS, which threaten not only our Russian competitors but also the jobs of our brilliant ladies. Have no fear, for Dorothy (Octavia Spencer) comes to the rescue as supervisor par excellence.
Hidden Figures could be criticized for its lenient treatment of wrongdoers and its benign depiction of the heroines, but I prefer to think like Costner's character that we should go beyond the "figures" to the bigger gestalt of universal equality. In this warm history, even the Russians come off well enough as experts who beat us into orbit (Yuri Gagarin).
Yet, we beat them to the moon! That striving without cultural barriers is the heart of this romantic adventure just as riveting as any superhero blockbuster, a genre that has gone way beyond prejudice long ago and far, far away.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
