A Film That Respects Intellect

Rating: 7/10 (13 August 2019)

Quick, how many movies are there about mathematicians? Not many...equations usually don't make for great drama or comedy. We did have "A Beautiful Mind" in 2001 which used about one minute of film time on John Nash's game theory, and we did see the development of an aerodynamic equation to help the boys find their rocket in the woods in "October Sky" (1999). Accordingly, kudos go to the filmmakers of "Hidden Figures" for bringing the story of these NASA mathematicians, who happened to be young black women, to our attention, and highlighting their computational skills. And of course it helps, as far as the viewer's interest is concerned, that the math was employed at NASA during the initial critical years of the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and where the Soviet Union had the early lead from Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin (first human in space).
These three black women mathematicians / engineers are indeed remarkable for their time when educational opportunities were much less available for women and for blacks, particularly in technical fields where suspicion reigned. We see in the film some of the social impediments they faced from unhelpful colleagues and organizational barriers. There's some doubt in my mind from what I've read of these women's experiences that the filmmakers have accurately portrayed the social and physical handicaps confronting these women. It seems that overdid these handicaps to (understandably) provide more drama to what otherwise might have been just a technical story. I don't have a problem with a degree of dramatic license if it adds a degree of dramatic tension to a story that might otherwise be too bland for non-technical-minded folks, but "Hidden Figures" overdid it a bit. NASA was a technical organization, and while it may have harbored individuals with personal prejudices, institutionally it was more of a meritocratic organization. After all, it relied on a ex-Nazi, Werner Von Braun, to help build the fabulous Saturn 5 Rocket.
Perceptions and personal perspective are everything it seems. I'm amazed of how many reviews on this site decry the portrayal of white people in this film. There wasn't a lot of overt, hostile racism (if any) and suspicious and recalcitrant co-workers are redeemed in the end by their emerging respect for the black women mathematicians. On the other side some critics have written very unfavorably about the "white savior" complexion of the film, e.g., the white supervisor (Kevin Costner) comes to the rescue by chopping down the "Whites Only" sign over the nearest ladies room; a sign that in real life the woman mathematician simply ignored with no apparent consequences. Perhaps the filmmakers struck a happy balance, and there's no doubt that, commercially at least, they were "redeemed" by a box office of $236 M on a budget of $25 M!