DIRECTOR: Theodore Melfi SCREENWRITER: Theodore Melfi,
Allison Schroeder PRODUCER: Peter Chernin, Donna Gigliotti, Theodore
Melfi, Jenno Topping, Pharrell Williams EDITOR: Peter Teschner. MUSICAL
DIRECTOR: Hans Zimmer, Pharrell Williams, Benjamin Wallfisch.
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mandy Walker DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Fox LOCATION: United States GENRE: Biographical drama RUNNING TIME:
127 minutes.
Technical assessment:
4
Moral assessment:
4
CINEMA rating: V14
Hidden Figures tells the true
story of three African-American women mathematicians in NASA who played major
roles in the successful launch of astronaut John Glenn’s historic multiple orbits
around the earth in the 1960s. The three are called ‘colored human computers’
at a time of deep racial segregations. Katherine Goble (Henson) is
promoted to work in the Space Task Group headed by Al Harrison (Costner).
Dorothy Vaughan (Spencer) acts as supervisor to a group of fellow
African-Americans, but whose pleas for promotion are ignored by her white
female supervisor. Mary Jackson (Monáe) goes to court to win the right to
be the first black female to study and train as a NASA engineer.
The film is an adaptation of Margot Lee Shetterly’s book of the same
title. Overall, the scenes are beautifully shot—the period costumes
delight visually, albeit the performances sometimes tend to go over the top.
Despite its dark theme of segregation and misogyny, the film is upbeat in
sights and sounds. The first scene of all three women stranded together by the
highway fixing their car while chatting leisurely under a beautiful blue sky is
shattered subtly by the tension brought by the arrival of a police car driven
expectedly by a white male officer. And yet that scene ends up with the three
women singing along as they are escorted to NASA by the same officer. It
then sets the stage for subsequent vignettes backed by Pharrell Williams’
soulful pop music, all appearing in between or during each woman’s struggle and
fight for her rights.
Hidden Figures is inspiring as
much as it is revealing in its treatment of segregation issues. We are in awe
at the exemplary individual achievements of the three lead characters. They do
represent the inherent dignity that is accorded each human being—not on account
of race, color, gender, or faith. That they are human beings gives them equal
access, as with everyone else, to lead a life that would allow them to reach
their full potentials. In the movie, we see this as access to education, fair
treatment at work, promotion based on merit, and yes, even the use of a toilet.
Yet we wonder: what about those who are not as gifted as Katherine, Dorothy,
and Mary—the poor in the fringes? The film puts them in the backdrop, with
Martin Luther King organizing these African-American groups to fight for
equality. To this day, we face the same issues of hate and segregation. The
film gives us the message several ways. Maybe not all, but we get something good.
It gives us hope, in individual achievement and the social movement. That is what
good movies are great for.
