there's effort involved

Rating: 9/10 (8 May 2017)

I had never known the story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson before "Hidden Figures" got released. Even if it's hard for the viewer to follow the scientific lingo, it's still a fascinating story, as the three women fight tooth and nail to both help with NASA's space program and for acknowledgment of their contributions. I saw a correlation between the fact that landing a man on the moon was a major effort that we could nonetheless achieve, and the fact that taking on institutionalized racism required a lot of effort but was still an achievable goal. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe portray the women as individuals who simply wanted to be able to support their families but also figured out how to contribute to NASA's work. These were some brave women. You may recall that Henson, Spencer and Monáe brought the real Katherine Johnson out on the stage when they presented an Academy Award.
Also appearing are Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Mahershala Ali (of "Moonlight", in which Monáe also co-starred), and even Jim Parsons in a role not too different from Sheldon Cooper. I guess that his character is a stern, socially competent Sheldon.
All in all, it's a fine movie. Maybe not the ultimate masterpiece (and there's the question of accuracy), but I recommend it.