What The Reviews Have To Say About 'Hidden Figures'
Hidden Figures, based off Margot Lee Shetterly's book by the same name, tells the stories of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) — three black women employed as mathematicians at NASA during the lead up to John Glenn's Earth orbit mission.
With a stacked cast and Pharrell Williams producing (and contributing to the soundtrack), Hidden Figures puts a lot of oomph behind rendering this true story — here's what the reviews have to say:
It Follows A Standard (But Satisfying) Feel-Good Formula
"Hidden Figures" is empowerment cinema at its most populist, and one only wishes that the film had existed at the time it depicts — though ongoing racial tensions and gender double-standards suggest that perhaps we haven't come such a long way, baby.
[Variety]
It's the kind of movie that knows there will be moments in the film when people start applauding. That can be annoying, but not here. I welcomed it.
[UPROXX]
The Leading Performances Are The Real Centerpiece
Mary has to go to court for permission to take night courses needed merely to apply for an open job in engineering. Monáe is terrific in the role, showing here and in Moonlight that she has the right stuff to launch an acting career to match her success in music. Best of all is Spencer, an Oscar winner for The Help, who is funny, fierce and quietly devastating at showing the punishing increments it takes for Dorothy to inch up the NASA ladder.
It falls on Henson, though, to carry the narrative: Demure in cat's-eye glasses and knee-hobbling pencil skirts, her Katherine is miles away from the wild, chinchilla-clad id of Empire's Cookie; instead, she's a stealth warrior, facing down every fresh trial and slight with steely, speak-softly-and-carry-a-big-protractor resolve.
[EW]
(The Supporting Cast Has Some Highlights Too)
Kevin Costner, who plays Al [Harrison], is an actor almost uniquely capable of upstaging through understatement. He is also one of the great gum-chewers in American cinema, a habit that, along with the flattop haircut and heavy-framed glasses, gives Al an aura of midcentury no-nonsense masculine competence.
Mahershala Ali is his usual welcome presence as Jim Johnson, the military man courting Katherine (and her children). Katherine's so focused on her career she almost has to be reminded she's falling in love.
It Avoids The Trap Of Being Another Chalkboard Math Movie
The best scenes in Hidden Figures show Johnson and Harrison hard at work on hammering out the data for entry and re-entry that will support Glenn's Friendship 7 capsule as it orbits the earth and splash-lands in the Caribbean.
[NPR]
Even Katherine's big writing-on-the-blackboard moment is different from similar scenes we've seen thousands of times before. Her drive to use numbers to show the world who she truly is has a specific and pointed context here: Numbers have no color, and no gender, either.
[Time]
But Its Broad Strokes Treatment Isn't Flawless
It's semi-soap: the supporting characters at least are fleshed out to a barely skeletal extent. [Kirsten] Dunst is dealt a harsh hand, but Jim Parsons fares even worse with his role as a snippy, racist colleague to Henson, forever rolling his eyes in unprogressive protest.
The director/co-writer of this movie about three black women working at NASA during the space race is Theodore Melfi, a white man. It's hard to buy the usual logic about simply picking the best filmmaker for the job, because Melfi is a functional and only marginally experienced big-studio director with a demonstrable weakness for cuteness and obviousness.
TL;DR
It's a well-cast feel-good movie that rejects more tired tropes than it embraces. If you're looking for a film to cheer along with, go see it.
