Hidden Figures Review

Make way for the ladies...

Hidden Figures Review – Another Hollywood’s ‘tribute’ (Read : guilt trip) to the unsung ‘black people’ behind their most successful space programme.

Winner no matter with Oscar or n

This is a real life story of the ‘coloured peoples’ struggle during the 1960’s to survive in the ‘white people’ dominated space programme despite possessing the smarts and talents to contribute. Three (3) such gifted ladies are Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). They are faced with daily challenges to prove their worth and things get heated following a successful Russian satellite launch. Pressure mounts for NASA to win the space race by sending an astronaut to circle around the Earth. Despite often getting marginalised, Katherine, Dorothy and Mary strive and do the best they could. Slowly but surely the perception and reception towards the ‘coloured people’ at the said space agency changes when Dorothy figures out the way to work the latest IBM computer and eventually getting promoted as a Supervisor and Mary wins her application to study at an all-white night school to become an engineer while Katherine almost single-handedly saves a launch by solving complicated mathematical calculation.

Welcome back to the big screen Mr. Costne

First thing first…the great casting of Taraji, Octavia and Janelle is a powerful selection to portray their respective roles. Add Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst and Jim Parsons to the mix as the sceptical white supervisors managed to depict the tensions among the coloured and white people perfectly. Some of the scenes will tug your heart knowing these ladies faced such discrimination day in day out even after proving their value to the company. It’s hard to believe such situation used to occur before but then it is also happening now despite the world moving away from racial discrimination. Although this film is filled with loads of mechanical and mathematical jargon, I was captured by the interesting way it was directed. I can’t find any fault in this film just like how Katherine can make no mistake in her calculation.

Hidden Figures no more

Hidden Figures is still relevant till day because there are still people out there faced with perception and judged by the colour of their skin instead of being appreciated for their ability. Hidden Figures is a reminder for us to keep our minds open and accept the fact that everybody deserves a chance to do their best for greater good of the human species.