Hidden Figures (2016)

Hidden Figures, directed by Theodore Melfi, was recently nominated for multiple Oscars that will be awarded later in February, so I wanted to give this film a watch. It also caught my eye because of a couple of instances where reporters have confused it with ‘Fences‘ (2016) which came out the same year and had a primarily African-American cast. Some reporters ask filmmakers about ‘Hidden Fences’ which is not a film. As far as what I knew about the film going in, I only knew that it was a film about Black mathematicians that helped put people in space, of course, based on true events. I like the concept, which was another reason I watched Hidden Figures. I was and am a fan of Octavia Spencer, who received an Oscar nomination for this film and have been a fan since watching The Help a couple of years ago. The final thing that caught my eye was the wordplay in the title. And with that, I jumped into the film.

After watching, I realise that this is a very story and character focused film. I say this because of the strength of the subject and acting, but also due to the weakness of the cinematography and overall originality of the film’s style. I think that the narrative would have been strengthened if Melfi used a more prominent motif that ran throughout the film, like the chalk pass or coffee, but used more continuously. With this said, it was a very entertaining watch and I give the actors and characters credit for this. I was surprised by the scope of the cast, meaning I did not know many of the famous faces that were in the movie. For example, Mahershala Ali, Jim Parsons, Kirsten Dunst and Kevin Costner. These famous faces did not disappoint me, even Jim Parsons, in his leap from SitCom to feature film, was very believable. Octavia Spencer did not let me down and is well worthy of her Oscar nomination for supporting actress. In fact, all three of the lead women were empathetic enough to keep me enticed in the narrative until the end. Their struggle gives way to some powerful moments in the film, such as Taraji P. Henson‘s midpoint speech. This is an important film, information wise, because of it’s historical context, and how most people do not know about the events, despite a couple of discrepancies.

There was a small, underwhelming colour scheme running in the settings. Cold colours were used in scenes in NASA and warmer colours for domestic or trusting settings. This colour scheme felt very basic and not very powerful, however, it did make the film feel more cinematic, thus feeling more worthy of the history. Other aspects that helped with this cinematic feeling was the score and soundtrack, that was appropriately light-hearted when necessary as it was deep and thoughtful when needed. I I had one complaint about the musical score, I think it was heavy-handed at times, but I have been known to say that too often. I need to give credit to the realism of the period I felt while watching. I did not notice any overwhelming problems with the 1960s feeling, whether in background set or character breaks.

 

There was a definite satisfying end to the story that told us of what happened to our main protagonist emphasising her achievements and her marriage to Mahershala Ali’s character. We feel a sense of victory because Katherine proved herself more than valuable despite her race. We rooted for her because of the persecution we knew to have happened in the history of the United States and the world. Some could say, as a film, it is an easy character to write because we are almost automatically on board with Katherine, but I say if a character is easy to write initially, it can give layers to that character. We know about her persecution before the film even starts, but then we learn about her gift for maths, and that she works at NASA, is a single mother and her father has died. It is also very important that all of this exposition came naturally! This is becoming rare as time goes by and is refreshing to see in modern Hollywood movies.

 

Overall, this film had some major weaknesses which stopped it becoming a ‘great’ but its strengths are something that should be followed in the industry. It uses discrimination as a primary obstacle but did not rely on it as entire characters: Mary(Janelle Monáe) was still bold, Dorothy(Octavia Spencer) was still determined to learn. They were not copies of each other but distinct individuals that dealt with persecution in different ways, this is where the writing flourished. It also didn’t find a need for a person to represent seething racism, I assume that the society they lived in represented the oppression enough. For example, Kirsten Dunst‘s character stopped Dorothy from reaching her goals a number of times because of “the way things are”. The character didn’t think they were racist but she was oppressing Dorothy despite it. Immediately after watching the film, I thought relatively poorly of it because of its cinematic weaknesses but after further inspection, it holds much more strength than first thought, thus worthy of its academy nominations.