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Movie Review: 'Hidden Figures'

By Bill Wine

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Space, race, and the space race.

All three subjects are in orbit around this historical drama, which serves to rescue three figures, heretofore unsung, from the dustbin of history.

Hidden Figures is an eye-opening history lesson about Cold War contributions to the race to put a man in space between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. by, among others, three African-American women in the 1960s.

Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monae play, respectively, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, each with the right stuff, each hired by NASA, and each working at NASA's Virginia Facility for Al Harrison, the supervisor (a composite character) played by Kevin Costner, during the hectic months leading up to the launch.

Each of these determined women fights her way through a de facto racist and sexist system as a "computor" and ends up making a significant contribution to the completion of the Mercury capsule prototype that until now has been pretty much hidden.

Figures.

3
(3 stars out of 4)

Henson's Johnson is a supremely talented mathematician who isn't being treated like one, Spencer's Vaughan is working as a supervisor without being acknowledged or paid as one, and Monae's Jackson is an aspiring aerospace engineer not allowed to take classes she needs because of her color.

And all this at a time when outlandish segregation, degrading discrimination, and insulting inequality were taken for granted, even in the federal program that was NASA, where white supremacy was officially sanctioned.

With their at-the-time unheralded help, complex mathematical calculations could be made – and this was for the most part in the pre-computer era, just when the first IBM computer was being installed -- that allowed astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell) to be launched into space in 1962 and "guaranteed" a safe return.

Director Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent) works from the screenplay he co-wrote with Allison Schroeder, adapted from the nonfiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterley.

Melfi employs a light touch that allows for charm and humor along with justifiable outrage, and he gets three fine, engaging performances from his female leads, with Henson and Spencer especially winning with their subtle underplaying.

And executive producer Pharrell Williams provides the pleasing music.

So we'll launch 3 stars out of 4 for the soft-edged historical corrective, Hidden Figures, an inspirational, upbeat real-life drama – and an agreeable PG-rated family outing -- about a trio of groundbreakers that lifts well off the ground and provides an orbit of satisfying, feel-good entertainment.

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