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Hidden Figures tells the story of a group of female African American mathematicians who played a vital role in the 1960s Space Race. The film was inspired by real events, and although by the time the credits roll we don’t doubt the invaluable contributions of those women, we do suspect that the word “inspired” may have given the filmmakers a lot of licence to stretch the truth. However, John Ford did say “when legend becomes fact, print the legend” and Hollywood has lived by that maxim since then. The film stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae as the aforementioned women who have to work in what is essentially a man’s world, as well as coming up against the dogged racism of 1960s America. Kevin Costner gets to renew his American Boy Scout act once again as the NASA chief who just wants to beat the Russians to the moon landing, and Kirsten Dunst reveals hidden depths as she channels Louise Fletcher’s Oscar-winning turn as the terrifying matriarch from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, in an underwritten role as a NASA supervisor who holds a racial bias.
In a sense, if you have seen the trailer then you have already seen the movie. Predictably, it has the spirit of a Hallmark biopic. It’s sentimental and sweet-humoured, and focuses on the emotional effect of institutional racism rather than dwelling upon the historical realities. The characters are gamely acted, although the players are often let down by a silly screenplay, which at one point has a character openly state that “we’re three black women in 1961”, as if the audience couldn’t have gathered that themselves.
There’s a star turn in the performance of Henson, who was surprisingly not nominated for an Oscar. You may have seen her in some supporting roles before, but here she really is something, playing Katherine J Johnson, a person of deep intelligence and compassion in a world biased against her on the two counts of her sex and race. A cynic may say that such a role is practically Oscar-bait, but she gives the role much more vibrancy and life than the generic conventions of such stories usually allow. In one crucial scene, she is left out in the hallway when the astronaut John Glenn first enters Earth’s orbit, and her physical acting here conveys a true sense of heartbreak. In another she wins over a whole room of white Pentagon chiefs through the sheer volition of her intelligence. Henson’s work here might be accurately compared to Oprah Winfrey’s screen debut in The Colour Purple, where she played a similarly nuanced role.
For the critic, it’s interesting to note that black history has been told in two modes lately – the Soap Opera (as seen here and in The Butler) or in the experimental fashion, which often comes across as the commercialisation of marginalization (2016 remake of Birth of a Nation; Spike Lee’s latest, Chi-Raq). For everyone else, Hidden Figures is a good watch and does a good job of recreating the paranoid atmosphere of the Cold War and the segregated South. The screenplay dwells too much on the personal dramas of its characters, in relation to marriage woes and familial issues, which seems unnecessary. But the central story and performances are captivating. These women had tough lives and did important things, and so I was ultimately glad that I saw this movie.
