Hidden Figures

A film about maths and computers doesn’t really sound too appealing, but add to it a significant historical event, a momentous step forward for racial and gender equality and some standout performances and you have something worth watching.

The film focuses on three women's stories who all work for NASA. Katherine Jackson (Taraji P Henson) is a mathematician whose talents sees her promoted to a role in the Space Task Group which is trying to get the first American to orbit the earth. Working with director Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), she has to deal with blatant racism and sexism from her colleagues, in particular from head engineer, Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons). 

Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) is an unofficial supervisor in the computer section who is denied the appropriate pay and job title by her condescending boss Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst). A threat to her and her team’s roles from the new IBM 7090 computer implores Dorothy to study and teach her team a computer programme language to assure their futures at NASA. 

Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) is their colleague who aspires to be the first black female engineer at NASA, only to be told she can’t participate in the training because she can’t take night classes at a local segregated school. With the support of influential NASA engineer Karl Zielinski (Olek Krupa), she takes the case to a local judge to allow her to attend the night classes.

Although all three stories feature in the film, the Katherine story is given the most prominence which, I can understand why given that her story was the most closely linked with the first US astronaut to orbit the earth. But I do think that the other two were equally as deserving of the screen time, I would have liked to have seen more about the court case brought by Mary for example.

My other concern is that this does feel like a light TV film, albeit a very good one.

That said, this is a great film. Full of fun, verve, pace, humour and some brilliant one-liners, it presents a serious subject in a light, easy and relatable way. I loved the outfits and the general look of the film and all of the performances are excellent, fully deserving of the accolades awarded.

Verdict: A film that will be shown in schools for years to come, for very good reason, but I can’t help thinking that this subject and this particular story needed a film with a little more depth and gravitas.