Great entertainment - Not a documentary

Rating: 9/10 (9 March 2020)

It's clear from many reviews here that there's considerable discontent with some of the facts in Hidden Figures but rather like Braveheart some people just miss the point of movies for entertainment and think because it's a factual story it should be steadfastly accurate with its narrative. I realise that in order to make an entertaing picture it's necessary to change some facts for fantasy to avoid it being boring and this film delivers entertainment by the bucket load. I was aware of John Glenn back when I was a teenager, believe it not, by a record by Walter Brennan called The Epic Ride of John H Glenn and after two hours, this is what we get. The lead up tells how a team of black women are used as human computers, to help enable progress in the space race between Russia and the States. This failure to treat these women as fellow human beings looks shocking today and growing up in England I was not really that aware of the prejudice that pervaded society and would have been disgusted by it even then. The film does rather hit you over the head as propaganda but it is such fun to watch, particularly when the NASSA boss shows sympathy with Kathryn, the genius mathmetician assigned to him and overrules those snubbing her. Tarraji P Henson plays Kathryn and Kevin Costner her boss and i'm surprised only Octavia Spencer in a more minor role was the only actress to get an Oscar nomination as I felt Kevin and Tarraji were perfectly cast. Nice to see Jim Parsons in a role too, albeit type cast as a scientist after spoofing it up for so long in The Big Bang Theory. I loved this movie.