Inspiring true events brought lovingly to the movie screen

Rating: Null/10 (2 February 2017)

There had been not a few movies about mathematical genius, real-life or fictional ("A beautiful mind", "The man who knew infinity", "Good Will Hunting", "Proof" just to name a few) but none like this one. "Hidden figures" is set at a time half a century ago with a convergence of three history-shaping events: the US-USSR space race, the Civil Rights Movement and the dawn of the computer age (when the term "computer" was switched from denoting a human being to denoting a machine).
Just as in Mozart's "The magic flute" the magic number of three is key. The three protagonists are three black women (at the time when, unlike today, the word "black" had demeaning connotations) each with a dream, an impossible dream it might appear at the time. The movie starts with their car stranding on their way to report to NASA to work. The typical white cop who comes to their aid eyes them with suspicion, almost disbelief upon being shown their NASA identifications. Then, he cringes his head towards the sky as the three bewildered women follow his example. It becomes evident that his hatred for Russians (their satellite up there spying on us) far outweighs his dislike of Blacks and he ends up escorting the three women to NASA.
Dorothy Vaughan (veteran Oscar winner Octavia Spencer) has been repeatedly denied her promotion to a vacant supervisor position (which she has in effect been filling for a year) by her boss (Kirsten Dunst) who is all cool officialdom and by-the-book. When the first "IBM" (room-size and a capacity of, I guess, 32 or 64 bytes) finds its way into NASA, it is Dorothy, mastering FORTRAN by self-taught, that manages to get it started.
Katherine G. Johnson (husband's name acquired in wedding we witness in the movie) is the mathematical genius whose calculations John Glenn (scene-stealing Glen Powell) trusts only (a bit of artistic dramatization, I suspect). While depiction of discrimination is seen with all three women, hers is the most visual, in mad rushes to the segregation bathroom quarter of a mile away, until the big boss Al Harrison (a seasoned, measured performance by Kevin Costner) steps in to do something about it. Quite stereotyped is her immediate boss played by Jim Parsons. On the home front, she is a widow with three darlings of a daughter, and a courtship by Colonel Jim Johnson (Mahershala Ali) culminating in one of the best proposal scenes I have seen in movies.
Mary Jackson (a very cute, cheeky Janelle Monae) should have been an engineer if she were a white man. With her supporting husband (Aldis Hodge) and kids, she fights for it and finally wins. The movie ends with an upbeat high note of John Glenn's historical space launch.
Racial problems are depicted in some movies with gut-wrenching violence. Here, the approach taken is completely non-violent. Battles are won with reasoning and perseverance. Discrimination is depicted sometimes even with light-hearted humour, or stoic endurance. There is nothing wrong with either approach, seen as cinematic art.
This is a movie that cannot earn a Best Acting award simply because there is no lead part. Most deservingly, it won the Best Ensemble Cast award from Screen Actors Guild. Spencer is nominated for Best Supporting for both Golden Globe (did not win) and Oscar (to be seen). Henson and Monae have not attracted any individual major award nominations. Ali has a Best Supporting nomination, not for this movie, but for his role in "Moonlight", for both Oscar and Golden Globe. Costner put is a good performance for a sympathetic role. Kirsten Dunst (Cannes Best Actress winner. a rare honour for Hollywood) also put in a good performance, but for a thankless job. The remainder in the award-winning ensemble cast list are aforementioned Parsons, Powell and Hodge.