Excellent Performances Highlight Nice Drama

Rating: Null/10 (21 February 2017)

Hidden Figures (2016)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Katharine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) are three black women working at NASA where they face certain segregation issues. When Russia gets a man into space, the U.S. kick it up a gear and Katharine is selected to help due to her math skills and soon all three women are breaking new ground.
HIDDEN FIGURES tells a true story and the title certainly fits because I'm going to guess that a lot of people weren't aware of who these three women were. Everything a film comes out that is based on a true story some people break out the tired "it isn't 100% accurate" debates. Well, this movie isn't a documentary. It's a docu-drama so it's obvious that certainly things are going to be altered for dramatic purposes so attacking the film for changing a few things is just silly.
As far as the film goes, it's certainly a crowd-pleaser as you get a terrific story, three strong women to look up to and of course some great performances. The performances are certainly the key to the film's success because the screenplay offers up all three characters a lot of development and thankfully the actors pull off their parts. Henson certainly deserved an Oscar-nomination that was robbed by Meryl Streep. She certainly gives one of the best, the strongest and one of the most emotionally powerful performances of the year. I'm willing to bet years from now her performance will still be remembered while Streep's is forgotten.
The supporting cast is terrific as well with Spencer once again delivering a very good performance in the role of a woman who pretty much allows herself to walked over until she sees what standing up can do. Monae is also wonderful in her supporting bit and offers up some much needed comedy relief. Kirsten Dunst is also very good in her role as an obvious racist. Then you've got Kevin Costner offering up his strongest performance in years as Katharine's boss who is willing to break rules to get the job done.
HIDDEN FIGURES is technically very impressive with a rousing score, some great cinematography and plenty of nice direction throughout. If you're a fan of mainstream movies meant to make you stand up a cheer then you've got a winner here.