While Johnson tries to keep John Glenn (charmingly played by Glen Powell) from exploding atop a rocket and Vaughan fights FORTRAN and Dunst for the right to be a supervisor, Janelle Monae is secretly walking off with the picture. He and Henson play off each other with an equal sense of bemusement, and when the film gives him something noble to do, it hides the cliché under the nostalgic sight of “ Bull Durham”'s Crash Davis holding a baseball bat. Costner is a perfect fit here he should consider running out the rest of his career in supporting mentor roles. In addition to the unwelcome men in the room, Johnson also has to deal with the tough, though fair complaints of her grizzled supervisor, Al Harrison ( Kevin Costner). You can see her trying to hold herself in check instead of going full-Cookie Lyon on her colleagues. Though she remains confident in her work and presents that confidence whenever questioned, Henson manifests on her person every hit at her dignity. I’ve been the only person of color in a less than inviting work environment, and many of Henson’s delicate acting choices vis-à-vis her body language held the eerie feeling of sense memory for me. Parsons is a bit of a weak link here-his petulance, while believable, is overplayed to the point of cartoonish villainy-but the overall attitude in the room made me shudder with bad memories of my own early career tribulations. The calculations have stumped everyone, including Paul Stafford ( Jim Parsons), the hotshot whose math Johnson is hired to check. They’re omnipresent even when we don’t see them, and the film develops a particular rhythm between problems and solutions that is cathartic without feeling forced.Īt the request of Vaughan’s supervisor ( Kirsten Dunst), Johnson is sent to a room full of White male mathematicians to assist in some literal rocket science. Though the cop situation is resolved in an amusing, joyous fashion, “Hidden Figures” never undercuts the fears and oppressions of this era. Her supervisory expertise is also on display when a police officer shows up to investigate. Vaughan’s mechanical skills are highlighted first: Spencer’s legs jut out from underneath her broken down car as she applies the trade taught to her by her father. They are similarly educated, though each has their own skill set the film will explore. Vaughan is no-nonsense, Jackson is a wise ass with impeccable comic timing and Johnson is the clever optimist. The dialogue between the three women establishes their easy rapport with one another, and introduces their personalities. We meet the adult version of Johnson as she’s sitting in Vaughan’s stalled car with her NASA colleague Mary Jackson ( Janelle Monae). The importance of the space race forces them to accept qualified candidates of any stripe, including those society would normally discourage. In an attempt to beat Russia to the moon, NASA has been looking for the nation’s best mathematicians. Her success at obtaining the education she needs is hindered by Jim Crow, but she still manages to earn degrees in math and a job at NASA’s “Colored Computer” division. Henson plays Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who, in the film’s opening flashback, is shown to have a preternatural affinity for math in her youth. Henson that is her finest cinematic moment to date. This running joke culminates in a brilliantly acted, angry speech by Taraji P. For example, to depict the absurdity of segregated bathrooms, Melfi repeats shots of a nervously tapping foot, followed by mile-long runs to the only available bathroom. He knows when to let a visual cue or cut tell the story, building on moments of repetition before paying off with scenes of great power. Co-writer/director Theodore Melfi (adapting Margot Lee Shetterly's book with co-writer Allison Schroeder) has a light touch not often found in dramas like this, which makes the material all the more effective. Vaughan is one of the three real-life African-American women who helped decipher and define the mathematics used during the space race in the 1960s. “Hidden Figures” tells their stories with some of the year’s best writing, directing and acting.
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