'Hidden Figures' A Review

Hidden Figures is a historical drama based on the non-fiction book of the same name. The film follows three women in 1962 who work as computers at the segregated West Area Computers division of Langley Research Center. After Sputnik pressure is doubled for the US to get results and  Katherine Goble Johnson(Taraji P. Henson) is promoted to the Space Task Group but is initially dismissed by her colleagues. Mary Jackson(Janelle Monáe) is an aspiring engineer but faces bureaucratic and legal hurdles. Dorothy Vaughan(Octavia Spencer) is the supervisor(in all but name) of the West Area Computers division who struggles for her rightful position as well as teaches herself coding for the newly acquired IBM. The three face and overcome various racial, gender, and professional divides to make the NASA program successful.

Henson is wonderful and understated as the somewhat bookish math genius and plays the set backs with heartbreak but never wavers in her determination or her ultimate fascination with mathematics itself. Spencer is dynamic, as always, giving a layered strong performance without sacrificing emotion or vulnerability. Monáe has the least screen time of the three but provides a nice balance with a more overt combative turn. The three have incredible chemistry and all imbue the film with a textured reality where the big moments are earned and the small moments portray the true injustices and triumphs of the time with more honesty because of how commonplace they seem to be. The supporting cast, most notably Kevin Costner and Glen Powell, all do good work. No character goes through some epiphonic transformation but there is a steady sense of progress, of obstacles being hurdled and preconceptions being slowly shed. Racism and sexism aren't solved but battles are won, it feels like life or perhaps how we hope life should be.

The film has a clarity and tenacity that offers hope through intelligence and resolve. It portrays the ugliness of the bigoted and embittered but doesn't wallow in it. The courage on display isn't cinematic construct its very human.

A grounded and compelling true story anchored by three incredible leads.

See It.