Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe in the film ‘Hidden Figures’

The space race. Jim Crow law in effect. The women’s rights political and social movement wouldn’t gain fuller effect for another decade or more. In the face of society and culture placing the obstacles of indignity, prejudice, and institutional obstruction in the way of merit and equal opportunity, three women became the focus of all of this through NASA early human flight program as shown in the movie Hidden Figures (2016).

(Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson, left, Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, center, and Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures).

The movie name Hidden Figures deliberately has two meanings that run through the course of the story shared in this film. The first and obvious meaning is to share the historical relevance of mathematical, programming, and aerospace experts Katherine Johnson (as played by Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (as played by Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (as played by Janelle Monáe) in the film. Johnson, Vaughan and Jackson have been hidden from the history of American space flight, in large part, due to gender and racial politics. That there service was critical in calculating the flight paths of astronauts Alan Shepard and John Glenn, in the film, and others was the mathematical figures that were secondarily hidden.

(Jim Parsons as Paul Stafford, seated left, Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, standing center, and Kevin Costner as Al Harrison in Hidden Figures).

The film itself takes a candid, if gentle, look into the true hardships face by Johnson, Vaughan and Jackson through the course of the early lives and careers. The face of much of that prejudice, along with the broader stroke of the positive stakes that the three role model heroes were to take, included Kevin Costner as Al Harrison, Jim Parsons as Paul Stafford, and Kirsten Dunst as Vivan Mitchell.

(Kirsten Dunst as Vivian Mitchell, standing left, and Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures).

The story of Hidden Figures is told through the lens of a PG movie rating. The stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson are told with grace, restraint and a goal to highlight the positive contributions in the specific made by these women, and the contribution to the collective fabric of who we are in America as well.

 

(Dorothy Vaughan, left, Katherine Johnson, center, and Mary Jackson, the historical women underpinning the story told in Hidden Figures).

The story succeeds in hitting the audience in the feelings. A single romantic story is told through the course of the movie, and the affirmation of equity and meritocracy, and the real barriers in place during the 1950s and 1960s in America are highlighted. I rate the production at 4.0-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, November 30, 2019