The movie of the year. coming to an awards show near you.

Rating: 10/10 (18 January 2017)

This is the movie of the year.
I saw this movie because my online friends recommended it. Several of them said it was funny, and they were right. There were some great moments of humor, and not the kind of humor one might expect. Most movie humor is either slapstick or cheeky lines, but this was different.
I had not planned to see this movie after seeing the trailer. The trailer made it look like a dry history lesson. My friends on social media told me to see it, and I am so glad I did. Yes, it's history. But it's not dry.
Maybe it was even sensationalized a little. Of course movies have to have drama and action, and this one does, and it uses some great visuals from the space program, but there were also some unexpected points at which I really identified with the main characters, and I wasn't expecting it.
Here come the spoilery parts.
One of the plot points was that the women were not given credit for their work or opportunities because they didn't have the college degrees and qualifications on paper to do what they were already doing. There was a line that went, "Computers don't author reports." Replace that with "techs" and that's an experience I've actually had at a job.
I was expecting to see depictions of racism and sexism, and those were there, of course. (I'm not going to go into more detail about that because more qualified people have already written about it.) I wasn't expecting that -ism that doesn't even have a name which made me see myself in the main character.
I was already identifying with her a little from the start because the story started with a bright child far ahead of her class, and that was me as a kid. Coincidentally, right before the main movie came on, the theater showed a preview of another movie that also had a bright child in it, and the drama was between the dad who wanted to give her a normal childhood and the grandmother who wanted to give her educational opportunities. When the preview was over I leaned over to Tom and whispered, "Speaking as someone who was a gifted child once, I'm rooting for grandma." And then Hidden Figures started and there was another bright child on the screen. I'd be primed to identify with her immediately. Maybe it wasn't so coincidental?
I really enjoyed seeing the NASA stuff, too. Who doesn't like rockets? When I was a child, my parents were always telling me that I was born the year a man first walked on the moon. My whole generation grew up idolizing astronauts, didn't we? A lot of people think only the Boomers are still interested in the space race, but a lot of people my age grew up watching the moon shots on TV. I had read and watched a lot about the space program and even met one of the moon men once, but I hadn't heard the story told in Hidden Figures before. It was amazing to see this familiar subject, so drenched in golden nostalgia, made fresh and new again.
I predict awards for this movie. I also predict the new geek catchphrase is going to be, "I'm not Russian." I know I'm just waiting for a chance to say it sometime.