Russell Bailey February 28, 2017

"We get to the peak together, or we don't get there at all."

Now more then ever seems the perfect time for Hidden Figures. Not only is the film a celebration of the achievements of science, but it is a powerful story about the advancement of both women and African Americans. Added to this is the need for the Academy to rectify the #Oscarssowhite debacle, and Hidden Figures' release is timely. It also contains three cracking lead performances and a lightness of touch that makes it the perfect award season crowd-pleaser.

The film tells the story of three lesser known members of the NASA space programme and their work helping to launch the first American, John Glenn, into space. Delving into their lives, it charts their struggle for advancement in a era of segregation and open bemusement at the idea of a woman having a key role in any industry, not least at NASA. One of the film's great strengths is that it finds the human side to the civil rights battle, and tells individual stories that are defined by that person's determination to succeed in the face of immense barriers. Here the struggle is for the most basic right of a toilet in your area of work, access to degree-level education and the ability to drink from the same coffee pot as your Caucasian worker. These are all shown (and more) and small acts of defiance drive the film forward.

At the film's centre are a trio of outstanding performances from Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer (nominated for Best Supporting Actress) and Janelle Monáe. They have a tremendous chemistry together and are the emotional core of the film. They are surrounded by a strong supporting cast including a wonderfully brisk Kevin Costner and a soulful performance from Mahershala Ali (proving once again why he is so deserving of his Oscar win on Sunday). But without these three performers the film would struggle to engage the audience so much.

Certainly Hidden Figures is a slick drama, far removed from the stylistic experimentation of Moonlight. It comes with a perky soundtrack crafted by the music titans Pharrell Williams and Hans Zimmer, and its script often chooses humour over melodrama. But then beyond the mainstream trappings is a film dealing with powerful issues, willing to show the rage born out of segregation. This is also a film where the central characters are all women, allowing the film to comfortably pass the Bechdel Test. Hidden Figures is proof that there can exist "issue films" that are thoroughly enjoyable watches.

Certainly America needs a film like Hidden Figures. While it doesn't shy away from the pain caused by discrimination, the film still lifts up the idea of American advancement. At a time when America seems more divided than it has for decades, Hidden Figures shows that there is a way past this moment. The fact it does this whilst being a mightily enjoyable film is all the more reason to seek it out.

Is this the best feel-good film of the year? It seems so, so far. At least Banbury folks think so given the warm applause given at the end of the film. However it is a feel-good film that is not strictly based on pleasant events.

The hidden figures in question are the African-American women in NASA (“the computers who wore skirts") who checked and rechecked mathematical data behind the segregated doors of the West Area Computing Unit. Of course, they were not heard of in the media in the flamboyantly white world of space conquest. The film is about the lives of three of these remarkable women: Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan. Katherine Johnson aka the woman computer, helped many crucial launches, from the first man into space to a mission to Mars. Mary Jackson was the first African-American female engineer at NASA and Dorothy Vaughan the first supervisor. The film explores their daily life and difficulties working at NASA, and also the tenacity and strength and humour they possess (you need a lot of that when you are being treated as the lowest of the low). There are nauseating moments (the segregated coffee, the rush to the segregated bathroom, the everyday, almost mundane racism), there are exhilarating moments (when the whole West Area Computing Unit moves to the IBM computer room, the mentoring of Kaz Czarnecki towards Mary Jackson or quite simply, the beginning of the film). I found all the actors extremely good: Taraji P. Henson as Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Vaughan, the singer Janelle Monáe as Jackson and Kirsten Dunst as the racist supervisor.

As often with Hollywood, a few liberties have been taken with history but they are not that annoying actually. At the time the film is set, that is 1961, Dorothy Vaughan had already been promoted to a supervisor in 1949, Mary Jackson was already an engineer and when the company changed from NACA to NASA in 1958, segregated spaces were abolished. John Glenn, the man who requested that Katherine recheck the figures – and this is true - was perhaps a charming man, however he was the one advocating against women astronauts after the Russians had sent Valentina Tereshkova into space.

But never mind the dates in a way: all these women had to fight one hundred, one thousand times more than anyone, even to get the education they were entitled to. Johnson became the first African-American woman to desegregate West Virginia graduate school and Jackson had to make a petition to go to night school. And one only has to go to Wikipedia and search for NACA. There is a picture there of NACA Scientific and Engineering staff: white women are difficult to count as they are so few. African-Americans? Male or female? None.

We are not there yet, though seeing this film, I'm sure, will help establish other views of history.

Lucile Deslignères 21 Feb 2017

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