The Right Stuff... but not the 'right' color...

Rating: 8/10 (6 February 2017)

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." The power of Dr. King's call for equity lies in that simple word: content. Think about it, content is all what makes us equal: blood, heart, feelings and in the case of "Hidden Figures": mathematical intelligence.
It is very fascinating that the words of Dr. King could find their most powerful resonance earlier than the iconic speech, in 1961, when space was the setting of a two-man race with America as the second. The Mercury program, immortalized by one of the 80's greatest movies "The Right Stuff", needed brains to expunge the Sputnik affront and allow the seven astronauts (Glenn, Grissom Shepard and all.) to replicate the exploits of Gagarin and beat the Russians in the ultimate challenge: the moon.
By translating the confrontation between America and the Soviet Union to its vast, unexplored and neutral area, space cooled down the war. But it's nonetheless out of the Red Scare and the intolerable implications of these devilish satellites, "sleeping by the light of a Communist moon" and such, that the US government spent billions of dollars in the program. America needed to counterattack and quick... no bucks, no "Buck Rogers", but you didn't get these Buck Rogers without brains either.
So you have two situations remarkably juxtaposed: a Space Task Group, directed by Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) pressured to get men in space asap and a Black community fighting for their right to be judged for their competences. Among their most brilliant minds, three women: Dorothy Vaughan, an informal supervisor, Mary Jackson, an aspiring engineer and Katherine G. Johnson, a mathematician, they work in the segregated Computers Division area of a Research Center attached to the NASA. Like Dr. King, they have dreams, collective and individual, and they sure got the 'right stuff' to fulfill them, but maybe not the right color of skin.
These three pioneers are in the poster and they're played by Taraji P. Henson (Johnson), Octavia Spencer (Vaughan) and Janelle Monàe (Jackson); the presence of Octavia Spencer, the fact that she got her second Oscar-nomination for her role, and the great chemistry within the trio will exude inevitable "The Help" vibes. The kinship with the previous 2011 Best Picture nominee also relies on the intertwining stories of women triumphing over segregation by remaining true to themselves. And last but not least, "Hidden Figures" also features a 'bathroom' episode which, beyond a light comedic effect, exposes some of the most infuriating aspect of discrimination... and racism.
But "Hidden Figures" is more than "The Help" with glasses (a comparison that made me chuckle), the film retells the main story of "The Right Stuff" with a different focus: the pivotal contribution of African-American women for the NASA space program, its most memorable scene features thirty women being transferred to the Programming Department, assigned to work on the new IBM machine and walking like in a civil right march, but not without making a clever nod to the iconic slow-motion astronaut-walking moment in "The Right Stuff". Adapted from Margot Lee Shetterly's novel, I would say about "Hidden Figures" what I said for "Hacksaw Ridge", the greatest merit is to have brought to the big screen a great story for 2016... and a great film.
Yes, I can say I enjoyed every bit of Theodore Melfi's film, it's smartness (one of the year's finest screenplays) and its capability to vulgarize complex math problems, its humor (the three actresses are equally witty and fun to watch), its sweetness and I will say its unpredictability. Indeed, when I expected many scenes to pull a "Butler" and get too heavy with the racial material, the film surprised me by showing some genuine moments of sweetness and understanding. I particularly enjoyed the way Mary's husband supported her decision to attend night classes to pursue her dreams of becoming an engineer. For dramatization's sake, they could have injected a conflict to make things harder but the restrained and light-hearted tone was right for the film.
And we can see the three women go through their parallel paths, Dorothy Vaughan's ambition to become the supervisor, constantly rejected by her own supervisor Vivian, played by an icy and effective Kirsten Dunst, and we see their relationship warm up with time and gaining more respect and consideration. In a marvelously written speech, Janelle Monàe must convince a judge to let her attend courses in an all-white school, she pleads her case with a catching passion, using the space program as an argument that nothing is impossible, and there's an obvious parallel between the space dreams of America and the dreams of the black community, things seemingly difficult but not impossible, because it is the essence of America to help people achieving them.
And there's the core of the film: Katherine, assigned to assist Mr. Harrison and confronted to a manly and white office place without any bathroom, where she can't share coffee, assist meetings or sign her own reports. Everyone who worked in an office knows exactly what Katherine went through and knew at least one petty supervisor like Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons) and it's one of the emotional reward of the film to see her skills and talent finally pay off, earning her the respect of her colleagues, who'd see the content before the container.
"Hidden Figures" is not just about women and segregation; it's about work, patience and intelligence and what it takes to fulfill one's ambition whether on a personal or a collective level. It might get a bit conventional here and there and as many users pointed out, the lack of smoking deprived it from a small touch of authenticity, but this is a flaw of 'epsilon' level... sorry I had to end with a math reference.