You had to be there

Rating: 9/10 (6 January 2017)

It's hard to recreate the early 60s on film since there was so much going on. Society was changing, we were moving from Eisenhower to Kennedy not only in style but in POV, sex and drugs were in your face, beatniks had turned into hippies, Frank Sinatra was out and Bob Dylan was in, civil rights was as much a concern in the North as in the South, freedom rides and the Peace Corps took up the time of college kids, women were redefining their roles, and we lived with the threat of nuclear war. How do you capture all of that? You don't. And this film doesn't either. but it does capture some of the angst for women and for "colored" people, and especially for "colored" women.
Set against the space race, the film focuses on the lives of 3 women, inside NASA and in their private lives. The acting is terrific from everyone, but the photography is pretty pedestrian, especially the constant framing in doorways. The music is also disappointing, especially for an era in which music was ascending in importance.
Leaving aside the film's shortcomings, the story itself is of major importance and a valuable addition to other films about the space race.