Hidden Figures (2016)

After watching “The Help”, another Octavia Spencer-starring drama that deals with racism in Southern America during the mid-20th Century, I decided to watch “Hidden Figures” for the first time. So did it match the profound themes and gripping performances of that film?

Yes it did! “Hidden Figures” is a powerful, uplifting and inspiring film with a fantastic cast and a compelling depiction of a pivotal time in American history. Despite a slightly distracting soundtrack and poor CGI, “Hidden Figures” is a must-watch!

Every member of the cast in “Hidden Figures” did a stellar job of bringing warmth and complexity to their roles. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe are all terrific as the film’s three leads, they have believable chemistry that adds levity to the narrative whilst also making the heartfelt scenes more emotional. Kevin Costner gives the best performance I’ve seen from him in a while, Jim Parsons is suitably unpleasant and Mahershala Ali is extremely likeable.

“Hidden Figures” delves into the treatment of Black people during the 1960s in a fairly restrained way. The film doesn’t really display the violent oppression of the Black community, instead portraying some White characters as self-righteous racists rather than brutal persecutors. I was pretty surprised how many White people in the film are shown in a positive light (e.g. the police officer at the start, Kevin Costner’s character and the astronaut John Glenn), which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does make me think that writers were more interested in the sexism aspect of the story rather than the race relations part of the plot. That isn’t to say that there aren’t moments of infuriating injustice (the library scene is especially shocking), but it’s quite clear that the people behind “Hidden Figures” wanted the film to appeal to the widest possible audience.

Just like “The Help”, “Hidden Figures” effectively juggles the humorous banter between the key characters with the darker subject matter. This film doesn’t take as many risks as “The Help”, but the script and performances made sure that the movie never became too unsettling or too upbeat.

Unfortunately, “Hidden Figures” is not a flawless film, whilst none of my criticisms broke the movie, there were a couple of elements that disrupted the flow of the story.

Firstly, although I liked most of the Pharrell Williams songs featured throughout “Hidden Figures”, hearing a 21st Century piece of music during a story set in the 1960s is quite jarring. I have nothing against Williams (I remember when “Happy” was the most popular song on the planet), but I think genuine 60s songs would have been a more natural choice, especially as the costumes, props and sets all brilliantly create a historically accurate version of the era.

Finally, the visual effects for the space sequences in “Hidden Figures” are not exactly up to scratch with the quality of the rest of the movie. I understand that, as this film had a reasonably low budget of $25,000,000 it wasn’t exactly going to look like “Avatar”, but I was surprised how bad some of the CGI looked here. To be fair, the filmmakers did make the smart decision to shoot these scenes with a grainy filter to capture a news-reel esque aesthetic, but even so, when the rest of “Hidden Figures” is mostly dialogue heavy scenes that take place in practical sets or on location, you’d think that most of the budget would go into making these crucial scenes look more convincing.

In conclusion, “Hidden Figures” is a great film. It's an easier watch than “The Help”, but it’s still an excellent movie that manages to balance entertaining character interactions with frustrating depictions of prejudice. So if you’re self-isolating and have nothing to do, why don’t you watch “Hidden Figures?”