Hidden Figures

seen on 25 February 2017

Theodore Melfi directs Taraji P Henson as Katherine Goble (later Johnson), Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson and Kevin Kostner as Al Harrison (a fictional part) in this account of how three African-American women mathematicians were instrumental in contributing to the successful launch of astronaut John Glenn (played by Glen Powell). The film deals with the crisis in NASA following the Sputnik launches by the USSR, followed by Yuri Gagarin's space-flight, and also shows how the women's presence and obvious (not to say essential) competence played a part in breaking down the segregationist colour barrier still largely in operation in the state of Virginia in the early 1960s.

The film focuses on three engaging intelligent women who have to negotiate both racism and misogyny in their workplace and in their aspirations. The two are entangled, of course, and the visual clues of racism are all too uncomfortably present - separate entrances to public buildings, separate drinking fountains in the street, separate bathrooms in the NASA complex, to say nothing of the unpleasant looks from many white people and well-meaning but still insulting condescension from others. 

But these issues are examined in parallel to the story of the first successful launch of an American man into space; this too holds our attention both because of the intrinsic dangers and problems, and because of the revelation of the techniques being used at the time. "Computers" then were people who performed and checked mathematical calculations - during the progress of the film a mainframe computer (in the modern sense) is being installed, and it is always referred to as "the IBM". One of the storylines shows the acting supervisor Dorothy Vaughan understanding the threat this machine poses to human computers, and cannily preparing for the changeover by learning FORTRAN and teaching it to her team.

The film is therefore inspirational both as a space race story and as a human rights story, and owes much of its success to the astute balancing of the two, and to the excellent performances of the three leading actresses. Kevin Costner turns in a dependable performance as the gruff no-nonsense leader of the team supporting the launch - his impatience with segregation arises more from its inconvenience to him than from its appalling imposition on the coloured population - but it is in the interactions of the three women that Hidden Figures really scores.

See the Wikipedia entry for instances where historical fact was telescoped or made more dramatic to shape the story (some of the white characters are composites, and some of the segregation problems exaggerated). This does not strike me as a particular blemish, as the film is not a documentary, though of course it does indicate that the situation the women faced was longer lasting and in some ways more insidious than a two hour film can easily demonstrate.