‘Hidden Figures’ Shines A Light On America’s Path To The Stars | Film Review

As the “Space Race” continued to escalate in the early sixties, Russians were beating Americans on progress. Our teams at NASA were struggling with launching a man into the stars – most notably famed astronaut, John Glenn – and President Kennedy demanded results.

Kevin Costner leads the think tank in Virginia as Al Harrison, a man desperately in need of bold new ideas. What is missing are minds that see beyond the calculations of the past, and are willing to embrace the math of the future. Awaiting this very opportunity is Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), an African-American woman relegated to the “Human Computer” designated section of NASA where she works alongside her fellow brilliant women of color, including her close friends, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson (Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe).

Hidden Figures showcases the story of how Johnson was finally afforded that monumental opportunity, while also contending with Jim Crow’s segregation laws and the prominent racism of the time. Riding the back of the bus, designated drinking fountains, even separate coffee pots. This was life of a black woman in 60’s America. It also follows Dorothy’s plight to become the first African-American programmer at NASA and Mary’s attempts to petition the courts for the basic right of attending engineering classes. It’s a movie with a simple yet powerful message: That wasn’t just a gaggle of white guys that took us to space.

Make no mistake, Hidden Figures – based on the book by historian, Margot Lee Shetterly – is historical fiction, not historical fact. The achievements of hundreds of African-American women were ultimately involved in Glenn’s successful Friendship 7 voyage, but movies simply do not have the time to layer a story with 300 characters into a two hour frame. Instead, screenwriters Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi (who also directed) focuses on our three main characters and a narrative summarizing and paying tribute to everyone’s efforts.

Melfi also chose precision casting for his trio of brainiacs as Henson, Spencer and Monáe are each afforded their moment to shine. Henson, in particular, tackles a multilayered performance with gusto and her raw emotional breakdown mid-film over the very basic need to relieve herself, serves as a powerful reminder of just how insane the laws of the past were in the “land of the free”. She also spouted verbal equations with a confidence my rudimentary education could never comprehend.

And can we make Glen Powell a movie star yet? Only an actor with this much charisma can utter lines like “Get the girl to do it” and not be written off as a misogynist jackal. His John Glenn flies with almost as much gusto as the real-life American hero he’s molded after. If Glenn ever gets a feature biopic – and I’m not counting The Right Stuff – I think we’ve already found our guy.

The trick with a film like this is painting the honest work and family struggles of our heroines and illuminating the vivid intellectual nature of each woman, while avoiding the pitfalls of agenda films where hammering the message eventually drowns out the story. Hidden Figures succeeds by avoiding the clichés and sticking to details. One moment comes dangerously close to derailing these efforts as Costner’s Harrison seems to be headed down the path of “The White Guy Who Single Handedly Defeats Racism”, a common misstep in films of this ilk, before Melfi refocuses and the film gets back on track with putting these women front-and-center in charge of their own destinies.

Yes, they faced insurmountable odds and were climbing an uphill battle, but they believed in themselves and, most importantly, NASA believed in them. Hidden Figures tells a story of genuine heroes that has been shelved for far too long. It also serves as inspiration to a nation of little girls to never stop reaching for those stars.