By any definition Hidden Figures is a feel-good movie.
It takes the story of how in the time of racial segregation, whip-smart black women did a lot of the intellectual grunt work needed to keep the American space programme up with the Russians, and turns their dignified struggle into uplifting family viewing.
The three women who are the film’s focus would be exceptional people in any time and place. Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Hensen) was a maths prodigy who despite being black and female in the southern states was recognised early and given many opportunities for study.
Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) was also a talented mathematician who over the course of the movie realised that computers would take over the computation jobs at Nasa so taught herself programming from a library book and then trained the women in her division.
Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) was also strong at maths but her passion was engineering. With two relevant degrees she should have been able to enter the engineering side of Nasa but she needed extension classes that were only available from all-white institutions.
While Hidden Figures panders a little, giving us moments when the oblivious whites finally get it, for the most part it avoids lecturing and is more powerful for that. For anyone wanting to give their children an easy history lesson this is the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.
HIDDEN FIGURES
Director: Theodore Melfi
Cast: Taraji P. Hensen, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge, Glen Powell, Kimberly Quinn
Rating: (PG)
Four and a half stars (out of five)
