- Location: Cinemark Century Point Ruston
- Theodore Melfi's Hidden Figures contains so many positive messages and such great acting that it should be an impossible film to dislike. I say "should be" because we live in an era where artistic condemnations of racism and sexism are inexplicably likely to generate an internet uproar, but certainly this is a film that was very easy for me to like. After all, there are very few historical dramas about rocket science out there, and even fewer that are brave enough to tell a story you probably haven't heard before. Hidden Figures isn't perfect, but it is eminently watchable and easily the most engaging historical depiction of underrepresented scientists that I have ever seen.
- So what does it mean to be a black woman working at NASA in the early 1960's? For Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson), it means doing complex calculations all day alongside ungrateful white co-workers and running halfway across Langley every time you need to use the bathroom. For Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), it means doing the full work of a computing supervisor without receiving full pay and having to constantly find ways to make yourself indispensable. For Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), it means knowing enough to be an engineer without being able to find a school willing to grant you the degree. For all three women, it means that having your car break down in rural Virginia becomes significantly more dangerous when the police show up.
- Surrounding these women are a host of characters who represent specific reactions to having black women work at NASA. For every supportive supervisor (Kevin Costner, Olek Krupa) who encourages you to follow your dreams, there is a mistrustful coworker (Jim Parsons, Kirsten Dunst) who treats you differently because of your color or gender. Husbands (Aldis Hodge) and suitors (Mahershala Ali) alike strive to be supportive, but you can tell they're still getting used to the idea of women scientists. Even the NASA facilities themselves feature built-in forms of segregation that usually involve the word "colored." In fact, it seems like the only person who easily cuts through all of these social boundaries is the eternally optimistic John Glenn (Glen Powell), but unfortunately there was only ever one of him.
- When the film is at its best, it permits the absurd circumstances of segregated bathrooms and classrooms to speak for themselves in ways that are simultaneously humorous and affecting. It also tends to succeed pretty much any time one or all of the three main characters are on screen -- Henson, Spencer, and Monáe are all so endearing in three very unique ways that it is impossible to imagine the movie without them. When the film does misstep, it usually does so by being a little too on-the-nose or by having an emotional character erupt into what sounds like an overly-rehearsed speech directed at the audience. In fact, one suspects that many of Hidden Figures' characters and events were created just for the movie, but the appeal of a good docu-drama is that it can contain significant truth without necessarily being completely true. One imagines that is how the three women featured in the end credits would feel, at least.
