HIDDEN FIGURES (2016)

The trailer of HIDDEN FIGURES showed that it's about 3 black women (KATHERINE GOBLE JOHNSON, DOROTHY VAUGHAN and MARY JACKSON) dealing with racism and sexism during their work at NASA in the 1960s and, eventually, KATHERINE's boss (AL HARRISON) knocks down the "colored bathroom" sign. That was a nice moment. Watching the movie, I discovered that it followed a better moment: When KATHERINE yells at HARRISON and her co-workers about how she's being treated. Those 2 moments would've been the perfect climax, but they happen around the 1-hour mark. The next 1/2 hour continues to show the struggles. That might be more realistic (people don't lose their prejudices just because they witness someone else doing it), but it takes away the impact of those moments. Actually, why am I even talking about realism? The movie is based on a true story, but I doubted that KATHERINE would've kept her job after snapping. I also doubted that her co-workers wouldn't have tried to take credit for her work. After doing some research, I discovered that there actually are a lot of made-up elements here. That's common in fiction, but it's especially bad here, because: A) The real Katherine wasn't that bothered by racism, so this plot feels manipulative and phoney. B) The bathroom sign incident never happened, which highlights the already existing issue of the white savior narrative. HARRISON doesn't seem to have a reason to not be a racist and/or sexist. He needed one due to how uncommon it was. Anyway, the last 1/2 hour focuses on a mission involving JOHN GLENN. I don't want to trivialize it, but it doesn't feel like a conflict as dramatic as what had been shown before. With such low stakes, the movie becomes as boring as a rocket launch. What? I'm the only one who gets sleepy when counting? It was not not-boring before either, but it was decent enough thanks mainly to Taraji P. Henson and Kevin Costner's performances and thanks partly to Octavia Spencer and Kirsten Dunst's. KATHERINE is a very likeable character and most of the original songs are good.



5/10

-------------------------------------

You can read comments of other movies in my blog (in English, in Spanish or in Italian).