A brilliant movie on so many levels

Rating: 9/10 (14 March 2017)

I have to say I was shocked at some of the behaviour in this movie. I knew there were race problems in America in the early 1960s, but figured somewhere like Nasa would be free of such terrible behaviour. How wrong was I? There were so many scenes where my jaw dropped and I turned to look at my wife in disbelief as to what was being depicted.
But it gets worse.
The issue standing centre stage might be overt racism, but to add insult to injury there's also a massive dose of sexism thrown in at the same time. I liked how this came from both the 'white' and the 'black' community. If the sexism had been depicted as a white-only phenomenon it would have started to come across as an anti-white film, but that was not the case.
Everything about Hidden Figures oozes with professionalism. The script is superb. The cinematography is spot-on. The acting from everyone is tremendous. And the attention to detail with the 1960s set and costumes is worthy of an award.
If you harbour even the slightest bit of racism then hopefully this movie will make you have a complete re-thing, but even if you think you don't have a racist bone in your body this film might just make you think twice. There's a wonderful line when Vivian Mitchell says 'Despite what you may think, I have nothing against y'all' and Dorothy Vaughan replies 'I know, I know you probably believe that.'. She says it in such a way that it sounds like she is agreeing, but the truth is that Dorothy Vaughan (her boss) does have issues, she just doesn't realise. it.
And probably the best bit of the movie is the speech Katherine Johnson makes. I won't go into details as I don't want to diminish the impact.