Hidden Figures Review
Sometimes the power of movies is to show us stories we didn’t know we wanted to learn about. Hidden Figures is about the best example I can think of in that category. With an excellent cast, a brilliant true story, and a high entertainment value, this is one that I can recommend to everybody. Really, I can’t imagine too many people not at least liking this one.
The story follows three African-American women, Katherine Goble, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, who work at NASA in Virginia, where efforts are being doubled to match the Russians in the Space Race. When John Glenn comes to town, we see what in particular these ladies helped with, and we also see the struggles of segregation that they had to go through. Katherine is assigned to help with the calculations for Glenn’s trip, both launching and returning to Earth, Dorothy helps with the newest IBM computers, and Mary begins work at school to become an engineer. And as we see through the film, history would have been altered significantly if not for the efforts of these three unsung heroes.
I’ll go ahead and jump into the many positive points about the movie. First off, the whole cast is excellent. Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monae, and Octavia Spencer really have some of the best chemistry of the year. All three women make their characters memorable and different from each other. Not just in their specific jobs at NASA, but the problems they have to overcome and the way they carry themselves. Also great is Kevin Costner as the director of the Space Task Group. While he’s given better performances, sure, this is easily his best work in years. The supporting cast also includes Jim Parsons, Kirsten Dunst, Mahershala Ali, and Glen Powell. With the ways this cast bounces off each other and really gels, it’s not hard to see why it’s won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Ensemble in a Film. Also good is the direction from Theodore Melfi, the same who brought you St. Vincent (2014), which I liked, but not as much as this one. The detail to the period of the 60’s is fantastic. Every clothing and interior decoration really looks like a documentary brought to life. The musical score by Hans Zimmer is also strong, and the songs by Pharrell Williams are also refreshing. The pace of the movie is also good. It never feels like it’s on a particular topic or event for too long. But perhaps the strongest element of the film is the excellent screenplay by Melfi and Allison Schroeder. From several fantastic speeches from the characters to the words of wisdom, there’s plenty of quote-able lines that will stick me with.
Really the only complaints I have are quibbles, and after you read them, you might not even think they’re significant. Well, just about everybody gets that southern Virginian accent down except, in my opinion at least, Dunst and Parsons, who came off as not natural. It just stuck out to me since they do have integral parts. The only other thing I have to complain about is the distribution of the the stories of the three lead ladies. While obviously Katherine’s work is paramount and the focus of the movie, I feel like both Mary and Dorothy’s stories were also ones that could have made their own movies, and while we do get the necessary scenes that show their progress, I just felt like there could have been more done with their characters. While sure, some will argue this is mainly Katherine’s story, sure, but if they go as far as they do in the movie, I think it would have been just as powerful if the other two ladies got the equal spotlight.
This is a case where while I was watching the movie I really, really enjoyed it, but then the more I thought about it, the more I realized there really weren’t too many false steps in the movie, not a ton of moments that felt like the filmmakers were lacking, and especially since stories about unknown heroes are always welcome in my book, I realized just why this has become a huge hit. Again, I don’t really see too many people coming out of the movie saying it sucked, and again that acting ensemble is a winning one, with great performances all the way around. It’s one of the best movies of the year.
My rating: 10/10.
