Hidden Figures (2016) * *

Directed by:  Theodore Melfi

Starring:  Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Costner, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, Glen Powell

There were indeed three African-American women who were pioneers in their time with NASA during the early days of the space race.    With Jim Crow laws still on the books and Martin Luther King turning up the heat in his quest for civil rights, Kathleen Goble (Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Monae) became firsts for not just African American women, but women in general at NASA.    With all of these potentially stirring stories to tell, it is a pity that Hidden Figures didn't work much for me.     The tools were all there.    The performances are strong, but it all doesn't build to a moving experience.    

We see a brief expository on the childhood of Kathleen, whose gift for mathematics was discovered early on.    The movie then jumps to 1961 Virginia, where Kathleen, Dorothy, and Mary are broken down on the side of the road.    A police officer stops by to see what is going on.    The women show their NASA id's and are soon given a police escort.    To paraphrase one of the characters, the thought of three black women chasing a police car through rural Virginia roads is something of a minor miracle in the 1961 South.

The women work in the Colored Computer Lab at NASA, where Dorothy works as the de facto supervisor without the pay or the title.    She is forever at odds with her boss Vivian Michael (Dunst), who masks her racism under the guise of "following rules" and "my hands are tied."    Ditto for Paul Stafford (Parsons), who is Katherine's supervisor when she is assigned to perform complex computations for the voyages of Alan Shepard and John Glenn.    Paul wants to assume all credit for Katherine's work under the rules of "there is no protocol for (fill in the blank)".    Katherine has a clever retort, "There is no protocol for sending someone into space either,"    Dunst and Parsons do what they can with these thankless roles in which they play rigid white people whose function is to create roadblocks to be overcome.

Kathleen is forced to rush a half-mile across campus to use the Colored Ladies Room, set to the music of an upbeat rock tune of the day.    We see this sequence four times by my count when once would have sufficed.     There is also a scene in which the ladies drink and let loose by dancing all over the living room which we've seen so many times now.    Such scenes have lost their effectiveness.   

The overseer of the flight plans for Glenn (Powell) and Alan Shepard is Al Harrison (Costner), who gradually grows to understand Katherine's gifts.    Costner is at home in roles as a wise mentor.   We learn he is a composite character, but Costner carries off the role with conviction.     I would advise him to stay away from movies like Criminal and 3 Days to Kill and instead embrace the juicier roles like this one that showcase his intelligence and charisma.     Henson, Spencer, and Monae are all strong as well.    That is to be expected considering their pedigree.    Spencer is an Oscar winner, while Henson was a nominee for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.   

So why is Hidden Figures a ho-hum experience?    Perhaps because there are too many scenes of Kathleen writing equations which take up all of the available space on the blackboard and, after approval from the bosses, the equations are used by NASA and Katherine beams.    This isn't very moving or cinematic, probably because no attempt is really made to have us understand what is being calculated and why.     We are just supposed to be happy because Katherine is.

There is also the critical scene in which John Glenn was forced to truncate his planned 7 orbits around the Earth due to a perceived heat shield malfunction.    We see Glenn re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and enter radio blackout.    The world waits for Glenn to hopefully come out of blackout in one piece.    This is similar ground covered in the superior Apollo 13 (1995), but I couldn't help but think that I've seen this all before.     Upon further research, it seemed the heat shield was fine, but the indicator light malfunctioned.   

Hidden Figures tries mightily to eke out a story here, but is there one that is compelling enough to be told?     I wondered why this story wasn't told before and now I think I know why.