Hidden Figures

Oscar noms were out, so I made my way to the movie theater to start checkin' films on the list. The only option to me at the theater here in Denton was Hidden Figures, a film I have heard nothing but good things about and would likely have seen it anyway.

It tells the story of three pioneering women who worked for NASA in the 1960s. NASA is competing with the Russians to put a man in space, and beat us to it. We were working to then have a man orbit the Earth first (and we eventually made it to the moon first). To get a man around the Earth and back, math that wasn't even known yet had to be used. However, computers weren't exactly a thing yet so NASA employed human "computers" - women who double-checked the math manually.

Dorothy Vaughan (Academy Award nominee Octavia Spencer) is the supervisor of the group of "colored" women computers. Two of those computers are Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), a woman who wants to be an engineer and continue at NASA, and Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), a gifted mathematician who gets assigned to the Mercury Mission group.

While I feel like some of the conflict is manufactured, there is no doubt that these women are awesome. And I don't believe racial tensions were exaggerated. When Katherine lets loose to her co-workers after having to go across campus to use the "colored" bathroom, and living with the indignity of having a second "colored" coffee pot brought in, I shed some tears. It was powerful and moving, and sometimes I still can't believe that that is what life was like in my parents' generation.

Hidden Figures is one of those excellent, feel-good movies that you can't help but like. It's not particularly artistically directed, but that doesn't really matter as it's the story that matters. In that, the actors all shine.

Small note: I would have liked to have seen Taraji P. Henson and/or Janelle Monae nominated as well. Octavia Spencer is great, but she's not really playing a character any different than the one she did in The Help (which gained her an Oscar, so....).