Hidden Figures Review

 

        I feel like with this movie was a necessary one for the overall history of NASA. I never had a chance to watch the film when it came out a few years back, but it made the rounds of best film of the year to being in a countdown of best space flight movie. Hidden Figures doesn’t change history in the least bit, but it adds on to show that there were other people involved. No one thought that these ladies contributed with the difficult task of figuring out how to get a man to space. 

1. Added History

        To think that mostly all of NASA’s internal mechanisms involved another gender. In one way, I can understand when someone is looking at the history of the organization. You wouldn’t find a book that talked about the behind the scenes. Not to besmirch the art of number crunching or dealing with a very toxic era such as in the early 60s. But I think that we focus more on the actual astronauts and less on the people who do the actual talent of figuring it out. 

        With that, I’m a sucker for historical movie so I was tuned in from the start. The three ladies that we see do a great job of portraying Katherine, Dorothy and Mary. I’m glad that we see some scene to explain that they do know how exactly to do math and use the new machine called a computer. I’ve never heard of it. 

        Among the trio, I feel like the main central story is mostly on Katherine. We see from the start that she’s a prodigy in mathematics. Not to say that the others aren’t that important in the context of the movie, but I think that the movie dedicates her when the actual space flight is concerned. Even though math isn’t my strongest suit, I do like just seeing how it all plays out. 

        One bit I do like is when Katherine is involved with the project lead’s meeting with the other generals. She calculates the landing position when John Glenn descends from his orbit. There’s one moment where she’s writing the answer and she makes a mistake, but she instantly fixes it like nothing. 

        The main reason why I like this film is that it mostly sticks to the formula of them managing to become part of the group instead of separate. It’s apparent that in the moments that we see them individually, the entire workspace is different. Like duh, it was during the time where they were separated from their white colleagues. But more so that the workplace is mostly male dominated. For instance, when looking at the landing capsule, Mary gets her heel stuck from the floor vent and must run to escape the test velocity. 

2. Period Piece

        As I touched upon earlier, this was during the time of the later years of Jim Crow. I was astonished to know that a government facility followed the separate workplace and bathroom for all the employees. For one thing, it really puts it into perspective on the whole need for these women. The US was falling behind the Soviets and the tools that we had were being restrained. 

        To anyone who watches the movie and think that Jim Parsons or Kirsten Dunst are the worst in terms of characters. I’m glad that they’re not just the typical racist, just inconvenienced with how things operate. Me personally, they represent just the times. And when you have Kevin Conroy’s character be the no-nonsense one to really understand what’s going on. 

        Watching this movie, it reminded me of various parts of The Right Stuff. They even included the moments of the rockets failing during testing and when the capsule sank into the depths. I wonder now if the women’s contributions were kept under wraps or were simply not documented in a way where you had to know someone who was there and knew the women who did the work. 

3. Overall

        Hidden Figures is a hidden gem when it came out in 2016. I’m glad that it exposed a different historical point of view that no one knew happened.