So over the summer I picked up a book called Rise of the Rocket Girls and I feel like I really should've reviewed it, because it was a fantastic look at how NASA operated in its early stages, and the way it empowered women and gave them jobs because it simply did not have the time to train the men in their jobs as calculators. It delves deep into NASA's history and the history of these calculators, from the 1940s to the last few years.
What it doesn't mention is the further segregation of the calculators, into black women and white women, and the level of prejudice in the space agency which these women fought to overcome. Thankfully, for that story we have Hidden Figures.
And immediately I hit a bump in the metaphorical road of the movie. Okay, disclaimer: I think the prologue is beautifully shot, and it was an amazing job by Crafty Apes (or possibly 2nd Chance Games and Visual Effects) visualising just how a young Katherine viewed the world. But this is where my problem comes in; the whole scene was unnecessary. It never figures again in the narrative - perhaps there was a scene or two which called back to it but they were left on the cutting room floor? In which case, why leave the prologue in? It doesn't even introduce our protagonist, Katherine Goble, very well - she's much better established in the next scene, which also introduces our secondary stories in Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson - and the whole thing isn't so much a set up for anything beyond proving her prowess in mathematics; again, something established again not long into the movie.
But that's all I have to say about it. It was the worst part of the movie, and it was still a beautiful, elegant scene. That aside, however, I do have some problems with the cinematography. It was weird looking at a movie and trying to pay attention to the filming style, especially in Hidden Figures. Much of it was filmed very generically, the usual wide shots where wide shots are called for, close-ups where close-ups are called for, a static shot often followed by a dynamic, moving shot which keeps everything feeling fluid. Arguably the best bits are where you realise they use subtle camera moments and show the story mirroring itself - moments such as the shots of Katherine running all the way from NASA's central building at Langley to the coloured women's bathroom in the West Computing Building, itself an old and worn-out facsimile of the upmarket, upgraded East Computing Building used by the white computers, which are paid off towards the end. But as I watched it, I kept wondering why they'd shot each scene the way they had. Sometimes it just didn't make sense to me.
And that's it for the bad. I went on about it at length, but that's because I went through some of the good with it too. The subtle shooting style leads to some really standout moments when they do do something different with the camera or the blocking, and everything has that very sixties colourful vibe, it all looks beautiful. Often the difference in shots is to highlight the disparity between the white people at NASA and the people of colour; how, despite their working together, there is still such a wide gulf between them. Often there is an air of separation, not only between PoC and white people but between people opposed in their beliefs and behaviours.
That's enough about cinematography. The story itself is compelling - a sort of rags to riches story, of a subjugated woman who is given her chance, breaks boundaries and proves she can do the job better than any man. And it is compounded by her being a black woman, at a time when racial segregation was still in effect and strongly felt around America. We see the world through Katherine Goble's perspective, as a coloured woman welcomed into the world of white men who all believe themselves better than her. They see her as at best, the help, at worst, a nuisance. To the movie's immense credit, it's given a lot of weight thanks to the shooting style, direction and acting by the cast - from the first moment we meet Katherine as a grown-up the film is engaging and witty, or else beautifully shot with subtlety and gravitas.
Meanwhile we have Mary Jackson, a feisty young woman with a flair for fashion and a brilliant mind. Her aim is to become the first woman engineer at NASA, and the chief of engineering would gladly hire her, if only she had the qualifications. Qualifications she can only get at segregated institutions. So her story begins the fight to get enrolled at a whites-only high school for the engineering classes so she can become the first black female engineer at NASA. It's a brilliant goal, and despite the weighty aim she still provides the movie with charm and wit (One of her first lines: "Three negro women chasing a white police officer down a Highway in Hampton, Virginia in 1961. Ladies, that there is a God-ordained miracle!")
Lastly we have Dorothy Vaughn, who has been doing the work of a supervisor for a year without a promotion to the job, and without the extra pay, because the supervisor of the Coloured Computers went on maternity leave and left them without. Throughout the film she is shown to be pragmatic, caring, no-nonsense and immensely intelligent, not only with regards to the computing but with seeing which way the wind is blowing. Her story focuses around the Coloured Computers room in the West Computing Building, and latterly in the IBM server room as she learns how to use it, and does so to a higher standard than the IBM guys who installed it and are meant to run it.
Overall, however, the movie touts the triumph of people over that of machines, and in particular of course the triumph of Women of Colour. And it does so in witty, colourful fashion, whilst keeping the story very grounded and human until the soapboxing elements of movies with social messages such as anti-discrimination are needed - we get our moments of grand speeches, and they are very well done, but they feel less important than the visuals that go along with them, which have been showing us all this time just how much people of colour face. Throughout the displays of racism and segregation we have the very human story of Katherine meeting, and falling in love with, Colonel Jim Johnson, all the while working for NASA and looking after her three young children alone. Overall, the whole movie is a beautifully told story, which ends on a high note and leaves you feeling hopeful for the future.
So let's sing the praises further, because I need to make it clear: the problems I have talked about in this movie are minuscule. They are in many ways utterly irrelevant beyond the five minute mark. This is a great movie - a little slow to start, perhaps, but full of wit, charm and energy and bursting with colour. The cast are fantastic, particularly Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe in the three lead roles, and Mahershala Ali for his turn as Jim Spencer. Jim Parsons does a good job - not grating as he was in Home, but I feel like he's been type-cast and I'd like to see him branch out into other roles - he plays the antagonist well but it feels like a sledgehammer at times, really hammering home the message: "THESE WHITE PEOPLE WERE RACIST!" Which is utterly fine, and sometimes necessary, but it was the subtle times as he went on which lent more to his acting ability. Although I did like the parts where he censored his own calculations ("You don't have the clearance," he notes to Katherine). Taraji P. Henson plays Katherine perfectly, as the girl who dreams of the stars being given her chance to shoot for the moon, and holds her own alongside Kevin Costner. In part thanks to the costuming: being the only woman in the room often leads to her bright dresses standing out. But she lends the part an energy and lightness to go along with the sharp intelligence and daydreaming, and she can put a lot of weight behind it when the scene calls for a more somber tone. Likewise Janelle Monáe shines as Mary Jackson, she gives it that feisty, rebellious feel whilst still giving us a brilliant balance between fashion-conscious and genius (this time I'm thanking the script, too - it allowed her to shine as the sharp wit of the trio but still gives her room to obsess over her fashion). And Octavia Spencer is as good in this as she was in Snowpiercer, 'nuff said.
Hidden Figures does for women of colour what Rise of the Rocket Girls did for white women. It shows them excelling at the things that nowadays we think of as the domain of men. It shows them being an integral part not only of NASA, but of the Space Race itself. It shows the real, important role black women played in getting a man into space, and later to the moon. Hidden Figures is a movie about black women's triumph, and that's something which should be celebrated more.
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