Hidden Figures is the little known story of true space heroes

BEHIND the scenes of the space race were a group of African-American women whose contribution was much less known.

REVIEW

WHEN John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth in 1962, he made history.

The world was captivated by the Friendship 7 mission, the US’s attempt to match the Russians who had completed the feat a year earlier. In the heat of the space race, Glenn became a national hero.

But behind the scenes were a group of African-American women whose contribution to the space race was much less known.

Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) has an incredible brain for maths, evident from an early age, surpassing her classmates by miles.

Working alongside Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) and Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) in the segregated West Area Computing group for NASA, the three are among dozens of African-American women who work as human “computers” calculating advanced equations. But despite their work, the women are relegated to separate bathrooms, lunch areas and work facilities from white colleagues.

All power to the sisterhood.

Katherine is soon assigned to the Space Task Group, responsible for calculating the trajectory of the upcoming manned space flight. She’s the first African-American woman on the team and walking into the room, it’s clear she’s out of place among a sea of nondescript white men wearing the same nondescript white shirt.

She races daily back to the West Area just to use the designated “coloured” bathrooms and her teammates force her to use a separate coffee maker. But her incredible work speaks for itself, earning the respect of the director of the group (Kevin Costner) and Glenn (Glen Powell), giving her the confidence to demand access and recognition.

Similarly, Mary is trying to qualify as an engineer while Dorothy struggles to be promoted to supervisor, a role she is already unofficially performing.

Set against the backdrop of Cold War paranoia, the space race and the Civil Rights era, Hidden Figures tells the important story of people too easily underappreciated by history books. It’s another film in this current bumper crop of stories about those who don’t usually headline Hollywood movies.

Sticking out like a sore thumb.

The camaraderie among the women is unmistakeable and there’s a real awareness that success for one of them lifts the whole group — the kind of community spirit that is too lacking in today’s individualistic mindset.

The performances here are wonderful and it is undoubtedly a “feel good” film with its warmth, vitality and empowering energy. The science may go over your head but it certainly won’t get in the way of your enjoyment.

The movie fudges the dates a little in terms of when some things happened. In actuality, when NASA superseded NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) in 1958, the whole program was desegregated. But that’s easily forgiven when the spirit of Hidden Figures is authentic.

The ambition of space exploration is the perfect analogy here — the wonder of discovery and pushing against known limits and tradition. It’s exactly what the remarkable women in this story accomplished, and it’s about time we all remember that.

Rating: 3.5/5

Hidden Figures is in cinemas from Thursday February 16.

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Doing it better than Russell Crowe.