A Fun And Vital History Lesson
Hidden Figures is the latest in a long line of films we expect each Oscar season. They’re usually true stories, often covering topics of race, gender, sexuality and other social issues, and quite often they’re just okay. Some are downright bad, and a handful are genuinely excellent (usually due to taking some chances with the formula in style or story structure). Hidden Figures lands in the sweet spot of being a genuine crowd-pleaser that, while playing it safe with technique and execution, is ultimately quite good, and the kind of film we need now more than ever.
Theodore Melfi’s film follows three black female mathematicians who were each crucial in different ways to NASA’s efforts to get men into space, and who broke racial and gender barriers along the way. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe’s Katherine Goble, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, respectively, all start in the same West Area Research computation division of the Langley Research Center in Virginia, but ultimately take distinct yet intertwined paths forward in the space program. When the Russians launch a satellite into orbit, pressure mounts to get an American in space, and Katherine is sent to work under Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) in the Space Task Group to double check all of the team’s calculations. Dorothy is a supervisor (in all but title and pay) of the segregated group Katherine and Mary start with, and she struggles for recognition and the continued relevance of her team as an IBM computer is introduced to the program. Mary, assigned to work with engineers testing the resilience of the spacecraft, strives to become an engineer like her superiors (who are all white men).
Each of the three women at the center of Hidden Figures’ story face racism, sexism, or both on a daily basis, but it’s not these trials that make them worth rooting for; it’s the fact that they’re just so damned good at their jobs. The film addresses a need for basic equality as a human right—specifically demonstrated with the issue of segregated bathrooms (and lack of any for black people) in the building where Katherine works—but it makes clear that everyone working for the space program is already in a rarified group. To keep people with just as much to offer, if not more, from a place of real value and relevance because of their gender or the color of their skin isn’t just wrong, it’s stupid. Having desegregated bathrooms is a right, but these women prove time and time again that they’ve earned a place at the exclusive table because they’re just so smart.
Where the film stumbles a bit is in explaining what these women are so good at. It’s easy to show them hard at work with complex equations, but Melfi and his co-writer Allison Schroeder don’t often discuss the specific use of NASA’s math until the third act, when it revolves around a launch, orbit, and return of John Glenn. When problems arise with Glenn’s orbit and he must return sooner than expected, and with compromised equipment, understanding how Katherine’s calculations factor into the solution raises the stakes enormously. Where as before the women’s work was clearly important, but without a tangible mission to attach that importance to, having a specific problem to solve for a specific mission brings their work into much sharper focus.
What is crystal clear and present throughout the film is Katherine, Dorothy and Mary’s undying drive for progress. The indignities they suffer aren’t violent, but they are insulting and humiliating nonetheless. Strong and charming performances from all involved maintain a pleasant experience for the audience, and when the characters are able to inch closer to equality, that success feels like putting a person in space. Doing just that is one of the few things that could unite all Americans back then, regardless of color or class, and to add new, diverse dimensions to that story makes this film the perfect history lesson for a modern, divided United States. Hidden Figures doesn’t do anything extraordinary with its film craft, but its characters are remarkable enough in their own right to command attention. Katherine Goble, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson demonstrate that non-white and non-male people don’t just witness America’s greatest successes, they actively work to achieve them.