★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
It’s the early 1960s, and the civil rights movement is
taking flight. A march is taking place that will forever decide the future of
the United States, a march where an oppressed minority will rise up and demand
better. However, this isn’t Martin Luther King leading the long walk from Selma
to Montgomery; this is Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) leading her fellow
mathematicians from their segregated ‘colored’ section of the Langley campus to
the main building. It’s a shorter, swifter journey but every bit as important,
and forms the defining posture Hidden
Figures, which tells the previously obscured story of the black women
(mathematicians, scientists, engineers) who were pivotal to the early victories
of the US space programme.
Director Theodore Melfi adapts Margot Lee Shetterly’s book,
focusing on three of these women: maths whizz Katherine Johnson (Taraji P.
Henson), aspiring engineer Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) and the aforementioned
Vaughan, denied supervisor role in her workplace by a white overseer (Kirsten
Dunst). The film is sold as the struggle of ‘the women you don’t know behind
the mission you do’, but as someone who wasn’t even that knowledgeable about
the story hiding Johnson, Vaughan and Jackson from view, the impact was doubly
felt. The separate strands of struggling minorities and an eyes-skyward
approach to the future intertwine fantastically, with the latter never
outshining the former.
I’m not about to go all poster-quote and say the
performances are particularly nuanced or layered, because this is a film that
realises that simplicity and sometimes predictability are necessary paths. However,
they are completely believable, and utterly brilliant. Spencer’s years of
experience provides the rightful guiding hand, Monaé gives us a constant reminder
of the barriers placed upon African-American women at the time (as Mary battles
for the right to study), and a new star in the skies of Hollywood. Henson takes centre stage as the first of the trio to
break through into a higher field: Katherine is the only person of her colour
in the highest offices of NASA, reporting directly to Kevin Costner as a fair
but firm director. Despite her incredible achievements, she is still forced to
make a forty minute to-and-from her segregated bathroom and given a separate
coffee pot to her white male colleagues. Henson handles the central role with grace and ferocity, enough to keep Costner and a surprisingly strong Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) on their toes.
It's difficult to imagine that Costner’s
role was too much of a stretch for him, and it’s his character (a collection of
several other people fused together for the sake of narrative ease) that feels
the most like a concession to white audiences, to prevent accusations of bias
(a bit rich, if you ask me). Mahershala Ali appears from time-to-time, too: if
you accomplish nothing else in life, find someone who looks at you as adoringly
as he looks at literally everyone in this film.
A scattering of critics have picked holes in what
they see as a lack of technical prowess. Not only have they clearly missed the
point, but they’re also just plain wrong; there’s some stellar work going on,
formally. Hans Zimmer delivers his least intrusive score in years (allowing
Pharrell to take most of the heavy-lifting), and Mandy Walker sneaks a handful
of really great compositions into the cinematography. Characters stand behind
glass panes or converse across mirrors, divided by window frames or other
barriers that are every bit as thin and easily breakable as their fragile
racial divides.
Also, perhaps it’s not showily constructed because (shock
horror), the director is more interested in building characters and
highlighting adversity than effects-heavy rocket porn? Melfi is doing what any
good ally of people of colour should do: using their privileged access to these
tools to tell a tale that wouldn’t otherwise be seen, but stepping back to
allow that story and its message to speak clearly. “Civil rights ain’t always
civil,” admits Jackson’s husband, but Hidden
Figures is. Certainly, it never shies away from stark images of persecution
and shocking ignorance, but it does so with its head held high, safe in the
knowledge that any right-thinking person is on its side and smiling wryly in
unison.
This is a story told affectionately; sentimental without
being cheesy, inspirational without a roll of the eyes. Even if the wonderful
cast, prescient message and triumphant spirit wasn’t enough to make it
infectiously enjoyable, the fact we’re even getting an awards season movie
starring three black women is a reason to smile. It’s a shockingly overdue
smile, occasionally brought on by reliance on cliché, but, as Harrison says;
“Progress is a double-edged sword”
