The women consistently out-think their higher-ranked (usually white, male) colleagues, whether by learning a new programming language, solving problems in wind-tunnel experiments, or calculating narrow launch windows for space missions. Dorothy is fighting for a long overdue promotion, while the arrival of an IBM machine threatens to put her team of computers out of work. Mary must navigate layers of racist bureaucratic hurdles in her quest to become an engineer. Katherine is closest to the excitement, but Hidden Figures widens its scope beyond her. She arrives at her new job to find she’s the sole brown face in the room. is so desperate to beat the Soviet Union into space that NASA becomes a reluctant meritocracy: Because of her expertise in analytic geometry, Katherine is assigned to a special task group trying to get Glenn into orbit. Due to Virginia’s segregation laws, African American female computers have to work in a separate “colored” building at the Langley Research Center. Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy are part of NASA’s pool of human “computers”-employees, usually women, charged with doing calculations before the use of digital computers. Hidden Figures begins in earnest in 1961. (It’s worth noting that, as a dramatization, the film makes tweaks to the timeline, characters, and events of the books.) But her story is woven tightly with those of Mary (Janelle Monáe) and Dorothy (Octavia Spencer) the former became NASA’s first black female engineer, the latter was a mathematician who became NASA’s first African American manager.
Henson) is the film’s ostensible protagonist and gets the most screen time. By refracting the overlooked lives and accomplishments of Johnson, Vaughan, and Jackson through this lens, Hidden Figures manages to be more than an inspiring history lesson with wonderful performances.įrom the start, Hidden Figures makes clear that it is about a trio, not a lone heroine. They’re phenomenal at what they do, but they’re also generous with their time, their energy, and their patience in a way that feels humane, not saintly. Vincent) and based on the nonfiction book of the same title by Margot Lee Shetterly, the film celebrates individual mettle, but also the way its characters consistently try to lift others up. And yet Hidden Figures pays tribute to its subjects by doing the opposite of what many biopics have done in the past-it looks closely at the remarkable person in the context of a community.
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