In the early 1960's, America was in the middle of two heated battles. At home, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the civil movement for racial equality in a time when African Americans were forced to ride separate buses, drink from separate water fountains and just generally were considered less human. In addition to that, women were fighting for their own equal rights. On a global scale, NASA fought to keep ahead of the Soviets in the race to explore space. Hidden Figures is the story of three African American women who fought both battles.
Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) work for NASA and are part of a group of mathematical geniuses referred to as human computers since mechanical computers weren't invented yet to perform such difficult calculations. The Russians launched the first ever satellite into space and Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) is pressured to surpass the Soviet efforts. They don't want to be outdone in the space race, they need to justify a space program that has yet to send a man to space, and they fear the Russians' access to space will allow them to spy on the United States. Desperate to succeed, Katherine is sent to the think tank of all white male human computers. She struggles to fit in and be accepted and respected, but she is determined, eventually winning them over.
On the day of the launch of John Glenn aboard the Mercury Friendship 7, something goes wrong and Katherine figures out a solution to the calculation needs. The information must be relayed to Glenn, but her findings are given to Al and she is shut out. Al opens the door and invites her to come witness the achievement she helped to orchestrate.
Katherine was also instrumental in the Apollo 11 flight to the moon in 1969. It wasn't until 2015 that she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and until 2016 that NASA renamed the Langley Research Center in Virginia the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility.
Hidden Figures is an amazing story that took entirely too long to come to light. The biggest thing the trio of African American human computer women had going for them in 1961 was that America hated the Soviets just a bit more than they held to their racism and sexism. If Katherine could find a way to beat the Russians, their biases against her skin color and gender were overlooked to defeat the enemy. The preview shows what could be an Oscar nomination worthy performance from Taraji P. Henson in the biggest role of her long career. She has mostly done television work and voice overs with some supporting character roles along the way. Most recently, she has starred in the TV series Empire after she left the hit drama Person of Interest. She looks quite comfortable in her role as the leading lady.
While the racial tensions are heated in the United States, the preview shows clips that gloss over the severity of the fight for equality with walls of segregation falling around them both in and out of NASA. There is a lot of humor and my only concern is that the 2 hour and 7 minute movie shows a bit more of the graphic nature of our countries ugly history at this time that will only serve to further highlight their accomplishments and the significance of their work than the 30 second preview indicates. With that hesitation in mind, I'm giving Hidden Figures a 3.5 Star Prediction. If the film lives up to the potential of truthfully, delicately, boldly dealing with the social issues of 1961 while balancing the global fight against the Russians and infusing humor and intelligence, that star rating could easily go up. So, am I right? We shall see.
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