Hidden Figures

Sometimes movies just don't work with me in the way they are intended, and I think Hidden Figures is one of those times.  The movie has a sparkling cast, and is generally well made, but it's so smooth and glossed over and just so desperate to please the audience that is watching it that I never connected with the film in any meaningful way.  It's well intentioned and has a good heart, but it feels just a little mechanical.

I think it's a mistake that the film opens with one of those messages that tells us the movie is "based on true events".  As soon as we see that, we expect some realism to the picture.  But the whole time I was watching it, I felt like I was watching a Hollywood concoction designed to go down smooth, and to ruffle as few feathers as possible.  The movie is neat and tidy, which is kind of the wrong approach when the subject you're dealing with is racism and the treatment of African Americans in the early 1960s.  Oh sure, we get to see some examples of it, like when one of the characters is not allowed to check a book out of a library.  And the movie also makes a big deal out of how one of the main characters has to run clear across to the other side of NASA and to another building in order to reach a bathroom that she is allowed to use.  But these scenes never riled up any anger within me like I felt they should.  Heck, every time we see the woman who has to walk for almost 20 minutes to get to the bathroom, it's accompanied by an upbeat and snappy pop song by Pharrell Williams.

And when the movie does get angry, it feels very staged and calculated.  There's a scene where the wonderful Taraji P. Henson finally lets out her anger in front of her boss and all of her fellow workers. (She plays the woman who has to go so far to reach her bathroom while at work.) We can tell that the anger has been building up inside of her throughout the entire film, and this is her big chance to let everyone around her know how she feels.  But the moment is not successful in the slightest.  It is overly scripted, overly rehearsed, and manipulative to the extreme.  It looks like the scene was designed to be used as a clip at Award Shows should Henson get nominated.  It's the kind of scene where all the extras stop and stand around, while the character at the center of the scene yells to the rafters, as if she thinks there are audience members up in the balcony who can't hear her.  This is a moment that should be sad and a release of anger, but instead, I felt like I was watching Henson grandstanding for the cameras.

I hesitate to say that Hidden Figures is a bad movie, as it's truly not.  I simply wanted a slightly harder edge to the story, and less moments that felt like they came from a feel-good TV movie.  The story it tells should have been told with a little less levity, and more weight and circumstance.  Set in the early 60s, we follow Katherine G. Johnson (Henson), Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), three black women who are working for NASA's "human computer" program, and are trying to help the U.S. space program catch up with the Soviets.  Naturally, women working there are not taken very seriously, and it's even harder if you're not white.  However, Katherine is a mathematical genius from childhood (which we get to witness in an all too brief and heavily truncated flashback that opens the film), and this gets her noticed by the Space Task Group Leader, Al Harrison (Kevin Costner).

He places Katherine on his team to try to figure out how to send a man into orbit.  Katherine gets the most attention here, while Dorothy and Mary get their own subplots each dealing with racial prejudice.  Dorothy wants to become a Supervisor and is obviously more than skilled for the job, but her hard-headed boss (Kirsten Dunst) won't allow it.  And Mary wants to be an engineer, but she is faced with having to get a certain education, and no school will allow her in.  So, she takes her case to the court.  Both of these subplots feel barely touched on, and somewhat undernourished.  The movie pays brief visits to the plots once in a while to remind us of their individual plights, but Katherine is the one who gets most of the attention.  The scenes that allow Spencer and Monae to stand out are the ones they share with Henson.  The three actresses have an easy chemistry that suggests long-time friends, and it's really the only times that they get to stand out.

Despite frequently relying on the subject matter of bigotry and hatred, Hidden Figures never really gets tough, nor does it ever feel like it's making as strong of a statement as it should.  That's because it doesn't want to get tough.  It's been designed to be as likable as possible, and any bad feelings are sanded down to the softest point possible.  It still makes the statements it wants to make, but it doesn't do so with any real passion.  Sure, we feel the frustration of these three women, but then how can we not?  It never goes to the deeper matters of what's being talked about.  And just to make sure the movie doesn't get too upsetting, it will occasionally trot out some cute kids, or a nice young military man for Katherine to fall in love with.  It feels like the movie is constantly pulling back from what it really wants to say.  It holds itself back, and that really damaged my interest.

Please don't read this review as me saying I did not like the movie.  Like I said, it's well made, the performances are strong, and there are some good moments.  This is simply a movie I never quite connected with emotionally.  As it played out, I was being filled with pleasant feelings, but I didn't really feel anything else.  That felt off to me.  "Pleasant" is the last thing I should feel while watching a movie about racial divides.  Hidden Figures wants us to know about these real life women and their accomplishments for the space program, but it doesn't speak loud enough for me.

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