Come every awards season, we see “based on a true story” films flood the cineplexes. This year – specifically this fall/winter – has been extremely packed with these types of features. Thirteen, to be exact: SULLY, MASTERMINDS, THE BIRTH OF A NATION, DEEPWATER HORIZON, SNOWDEN, QUEEN OF KATWE, HACKSAW RIDGE, BLEED FOR THIS, THE FOUNDER, JACKIE, LION, LOVING, and PATRIOTS DAY. These true testimonies are materializing to make audiences feel all the emotions – and maybe shed some tears. This fall/winter’s fourteenth entry, director Theodore Melfi’s HIDDEN FIGURES, is an inspirational, entertaining, uplifting crowd-pleaser that’s set apart from the crowd.
Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) has always been exceptionally smart. She has a beautiful mind. From a young age, she excelled in mathematics, beating the best far-older minds. It’s too bad she was born into a society that’s not as forward thinking as she is. Her elite NASA career doesn’t make her exempt from 1960’s prejudice and small-minded misogyny from people like co-worker Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons), who makes sure to impede her work, and boss Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), who’s astoundingly oblivious to her daily struggles as a black woman in 1961. The irony that we as a society can be so backwards when we’re trying to get a man into space is obvious. Her best friends/ NASA co-workers Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) are used to this as well. Dorothy, who runs the West Computing Group, is looking to move up in title, but her supervisor (Kirsten Dunst) is holding her back. Lucky for Dorothy, she’s got an end game in sight – one involving a newly delivered IBM computer. Contrastingly, Mary has white male supervisors who welcome her input and encourage her to go back to school for engineering. Trouble is, the only school she can attend for extension courses is a “whites only” school. All three have an uphill battle – and it’s oh-so-satisfying when the inevitable change comes for these ladies.
Screenwriters Melfi and Allison Schroeder, adapting Margot Lee Shetterly’s novel, give a sense of urgency to not only the civil rights issues but also the pursuit of dreams. The boldness and bravery of these three women (four in Shetterly’s book, but one was cut out of the cinematic treatment) is certainly inspiring. The emotional stakes are palpable and clear, though a tad overstated. Yes, there’s some highly schmaltzy stuff with Jim Johnson (Mahershala Ali) that I fell for hook, line and sinker – mainly because he’s a magnetic, multi-faceted, handsome charmer. However, none of this leaves you any less connected to the narrative. Also, the film is never short on inspiration. “Stop complaining and find an alternate solution” is a universal sentiment that resonates loudly, reverberating around this film’s corners and edges. Same goes for its understated commentary on compassionate quiet defiance. “It’s not because we wear skirts. It’s because we wear glasses,” will be the anthem you’ll applaud in theater, then go home and cross stitch on a pillow. Plus, Pharell Williams’ pleasing pop soundtrack is the perfect companion.
Nevertheless, I can’t go on without venting my frustration at a very bothersome trope that’s arisen in the past few years. It’s when the protagonist arrives late to the very important event they’ve been struggling to attend all film long. Now, I can buy this in most films about screw-ups not being able to get their act together in time – those barely scraping by, trying out this thing called redemption. But NOT in this movie, where the character of Mary, who has fought her way into a segregated classroom, is late for the very thing of importance. I know it’s meant for dramatic purposes. But it’s at a detriment to her character. The kicker is the scene could have happened without her being late at all – and yet, here we are, pulling out our hair at this maddening development.
Overall, HIDDEN FIGURES steps out into the spotlight from the chaotic background of award season offerings, rising to the top of the “based on a true story” crop.
4 out of 5
HIDDEN FIGURES opens in select theaters on December 25. It opens everywhere on January 6.
