![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/hidden-figures-poster-202x300.jpg\" "\\"hidden-figures-poster\\"")
<\/p>\nBy Bob Garver<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A lot of people were unhappy with my review of \u201cSing\u201d a few weeks ago. Many wondered how I could have so much disdain for a movie with positive messages about perseverance and following your dreams. There are two main reasons: 1) That movie is considerably less positive with its messages about stealing and avoiding responsibility, and 2) There are plenty of better movies with messages about perseverance and following your dreams. One such movie is \u201cHidden Figures.\u201d<\/p>\n
The film follows three African-American women who work at NASA in 1961. Katherine (Taraji P. Henson) is a mathematician and physicist. Mary (Janelle Monae) is a mathematician and engineer. Dorothy (Octavia Spencer) is a mathematician and essentially a supervisor, though she hasn\u2019t gotten the appropriate promotion yet. The three work out of Langley, Virginia, during a tense time in the segregation era. They persevere and follow their dreams in order to help John Glenn (Glen Powell) make his legendary orbit around the Earth.<\/p>\n
The three face obstacles typical of women and African-Americans in that era. Katherine needs to make crucial calculations, but the lead engineer (Jim Parsons) won\u2019t admit that his own work might be flawed and redacts key information. Also, the nearest colored bathroom is fifteen minutes away, so she\u2019s forced to take forty-minute breaks that cut down on productivity. Mary needs clearance to make necessary contributions, but can only do so if she gets permission from a judge to take a course at an all-white school. Dorothy\u2019s contributions as a supervisor are marginalized by her boss (Kirsten Dunst), plus she needs to get off-limits books from a segregated library so she can learn how to program the monstrosity of an IBM computer that itself is threatening to put all the mathematicians out of jobs. On top of all that, they\u2019re trying to put an astronaut into orbit, which is hard enough without all the added obstacles.<\/p>\n
The film is typical of the \u201cinspirational\u201d genre, which unfortunately makes it very predictable. Not predictable as in \u201cYou know John Glenn is going to complete his orbit\u201d or \u201cYou know these women aren\u2019t going to be kept down,\u201d but predictable in that the story hits all the expected beats like clockwork. It\u2019s easy to tell exactly when the characters are going to face obstacles, when they\u2019ll get around those obstacles, when they\u2019ll achieve minor victories, when they\u2019ll face new obstacles, when things will look hopeless, when they\u2019ll have those \u201caha\u201d moments that set them on the path to a solution, when they\u2019ll change the world, etc.<\/p>\n
Another distracting thing about the movie is that its version of sexism and especially racism in the South in 1961 is perhaps a little over-sanitized. This is the midst of the Civil Rights Movement and things never get any more derogatory than a few pejorative uses of \u201cyou.\u201d I know the movie needs to go light on the hatred and epithets to bring in family crowds, but it feels inauthentic that it\u2019s not more disquieting.<\/p>\n
\u201cHidden Figures\u201d plays things a bit safe for my taste, but that\u2019s to broaden its appeal, and it\u2019s very appealing indeed. Whose heart isn\u2019t going to turn to butter when Katherine schools her colleagues in quantum mathematics or when Mary makes an impassioned plea to a judge or when the program\u2019s director (Kevin Costner) takes a sledgehammer to a restrictive bathroom sign, not to mention all the celebrating the accomplishments of the landmark space program? If you see this movie with kids, all their cheering will make you forgive the film for being middling by adult standards.<\/p>\n
Two and a Half Stars out of Five<\/p>\n
\u201cHidden Figures\u201d is rated PG for thematic elements and some language. Its running time is 127 minutes.<\/p>\n