TravelingbeebryantRN & Flicks_withNick

For Labor day weekend, Flicks_withNick is reviewing the 2016 movie Hidden Figures. The film has an all star cast including Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, Janelle Monae as Mary Jackson, Kevin Costner as Al Harrison, Kirsten Dunst as Vivan Mitchell, Jim Parsons as Paul Safford, and Glen Powell as John Glenn. The movie has both 93% Rotten Tomatoes and Audience score. 

The film follows three women Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan, as they navigate their work career as black women at NASA in 1961 Virginia. The movie sets the tone with the first scene. The three women were stuck on the side of the road, when they were trying to go to work. A state trooper stops to talk to the women. They are thinking there could  be racial issues, but instead the cop talks to the women, and becomes patriotic, and wants to assist the women who will beat the Russians in the Space Race. I found this scene to be a little flat. They were going for the “shock” value, as he just agreed easily that they worked for NASA, but honestly I just didn’t find it funny. 

Early in the movie, they show how the three women are struggling. Dorothy is trying to get promoted, and recognized for her work, and wants to be a supervisor. Mary wants to be an engineer at NASA, but doesnt have the school credentials for it. Katherine is working under Mr. Harrison, and the racial tensions she feels every day. 

The movie primarily focuses on Katherine. The big focus on her is that she has to go to the other side of campus, to go to the bathroom, since there’s no colored bathrooms. This was repeated several times, to emphasize she’d have to walk half a mile, to just go to the bathroom. The movie progresses as they are trying to beat the Russians in Space, and Katherine calculating the math needed for the Redstone Rocket to fly in space. Halfway through the movie, Katherine gets called out by Mr. Harrison on why she’s always gone, and she finally snaps. To me this felt like the climax of the movie. The rest of the movie felt underwhelming, since the biggest scene already happened. 

The movie provides the formulaic “low point” for the characters half way through the movie, where they need to pick themselves up, and triumph. The problem for me is I didn’t think the payoff at the end worked. 

I thought some of the actors in the movie were miscast, and weird. Jim Parsons who’s famous for playing Sheldon in Big Bang Theory is supposed to be a borderline sexist and racist engineer. Kirsten Dunst plays a difficult boss for Dorothy, and tries to show very little sympathy for her struggles. These two actors are typically known for playing light hearted, or outgoing characters, and I don’t think the writing material did them any justice. At the same time, I did think Kevin Costner was perfectly casted as a bruising boss, as you can believe it in real life lol.

After some basic research, l learned that most of the movie had a lot of fictional plot points.  The movie takes place over 2 years, but in reality, this was supposed to be over 10+ years. The three women worked there at different timelines, so they were not close, like the movie perceives. Obviously they would have crossed paths, but they weren’t going to each other’s house to play bridge. The characters of Mr. Harrison, Paul Stafford, and Vivian Mitchell are all fictional characters, so the scene of Mr. Harrison breaking down the “colors only” sign, never happened. This film took place in 1961, but segregation at NASA actually ended in 1958, so the entire plot point is just fiction. Was there racism or sexism at NASA? I’m sure there was, but segregation wasn’t a factor at the time of this movie, so every scenario is fictionalized.

The only scene I found that was accurate, was when Glen Powell was about to take off, and the IBM calculations were off. John asked for the “girl” to check the data, which he’s referring to Katherine. This happened in real life, where he wasn’t going to proceed, until she verified the data. To me this was the best scene in the movie, and I’m just glad that this was actually factual.

Overall, I thought this movie had some funny scenes, and heartfelt moments, but the fact that the majority of the dramatic scenes were complete fiction kinda ruined the movie for me. I think a nicely filmed documentary would have done these three women better justice. I’m happy that this movie brought these amazing women to the limelight, but should have been presented differently. 

I give this movie a 2.7 / 5. The above average rating is for Glen Powell’s performance. 

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