Just perfect...

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory) makes a first movie and gets beaten up in NASA mission by our protagonist, thats a first. I could see him twitching with pain when Katherine Johnson, erases the black board (no pun intended it is black board not white board) and rewrites the formulas for John Glen's pod re-entry, unfortunately Penny was not there to console him. The review Hidden Figures is a wonderful uplifting story of three African American ladies during segregation, making it to the top in NASA space mission. The bubbly, Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) who wants to be an aeronautical engineer in the white mans world, men watch her struggle through a observatory window when her heel gets stuck on the launch pad. The senior, Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) who is managing a colored computers - literal meaning is a black women employed for computing. The genius of the trio is Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) who is calculating rocket's trajectory and re-entry crossing odds with Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons famously known as Sheldon Cooper). The movie is fairly star studded, Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) is head of the launch mission who at first is very skeptical of the Katherine's math abilities, he is a fantastic scientist with great leadership skills, but his human side is revealed when he discovers that Katherine took half hour breaks on a critical mission days just to learn that she had to walk half a mile (rain or shine) to relieve herself in the colored bathrooms. Takes a sledge hammer and shatters the signs of color of the facility and declares "There are no colors here at NASA, we are all one color". In the other building Dorothy updates her staff with coding (FORTRAN) so that they don't become obsolete on the installation of IBM supercomputers in the building, in the interim gains the much anticipated respect from her supervisor Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst). Mary breaks the barrier to be the first women to go to a College for White only through a court order. The icing on the cake is when management decides to take off Katherine from the mission control since all the calculations can be done by IBM computers, John Glenn personally orders to get Katherine to verify the calculations done by the computer. She oversees safe re-entry of John Glen in the Mission Control room filled with White people (I mean all men dressed in white shirts), with Katherine in a bright colored dress. She later goes on to supervise the Apollo 11 launch, mission to moon. The movie is a pleasant watch, very well directed by Theodore Melfi, a must watch for all children.

This movie starts out somewhat slow, but wait and get rewarded with a tremendous feel good end part. What 's the story? The americans want to be the first to put a man on the moon in the sixties. In those days when toilets and buses still had seperate places for people of color it was a big surprise for me to find out that a lot of very smart african-american ladies were the DECISIVE help for this succes to put the first man on the moon. 3 african-american ladies in particular were absolute whizkids who outsmarted any Nasa mathematician of that time. Incredible true story.Mind you racism against african americans in those days was really violent and widespread. Martin Luther King got shot late in the sixties, a year before the actual moonlanding. Amidst that chaos in american civil rights history, these african american ladies helped out with the mathematical calculations that were absolutely necessary to succesfully put the first man on the moon. Fascinating story, that is really well acted too, by relatively unknown actresses! The story describes the conflicts these ladies get into when they have to endure the racism of their fellow collegues at NASA. This may sound all very heavy, but on the contrary, this film achieves a definite feel good mood, while handling very serious race issues. Very safe and predictable feel good story, despite the serious issue of racism. Made with the intent to offend nobody. No violence is shown. Everybody becomes a winner in the end. An almost fairytale like telling of a history of racism. That's my only criticism: it is very sweet and rosey, the way that period was depicted. There is even some romance in it and also some good humor. But this sugarcoated movie has got the advantage that it can be seen by kids too. And that's important, because they have to learn about this part of american history. "Hidden Figures" is a fascinating TRUE story, that is an uplifting and inspiring tale, about conquering racism by working together.

I enjoyed this thoroughly. It isn't likely to be the most true to life imagining I've ever seen of the problems people of colour faced in the US in the 60's and it no doubt glosses over a lot of issues, but all in all I found it sufficiently entertaining not to mind.A solid 7/10.

Based on a true story: In 1961, three black women are friends who work at a research center for NASA in the state of Virginia. All are brilliant mathematicians and have greater qualifications that would exceed those of their current jobs. They include Katherine (Goble) Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), a genius mathematician, Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), an aspiring engineer, and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), a computer expert and aspiring supervisor. "Hidden Figures" is based on the non-fiction book by Margot Lee Shetterley.This movie is an entertaining piece of NASA history (including John Glenn's first launch into space) with a special focus. It is occasionally jingoistic ('we gotta beat those Russians in the space race') and with occasional cheesy music to underline a budding romance which is easily foreseen. But it is ultimately a fine story that very ably highlights the stresses and frustrations of regular working life with the added humiliation of segregation in the workplace.Indeed, some of the people in the film were composite characters from the book and there were some incidents in the film that didn't actually happen. One of the most over-the-top "Hollywood" scenes is one where Kevin Costner (as Katherine's boss) is wielding a pick axe (those who've seen the movie will know what I mean). Despite these liberties with the truth, the scenes of segregation still had the right effect of outraging the viewer. The highlight is a scene in which Katherine, who had been timid up to a point, has a perfect meltdown scene (Hanson's best moment in a fine performance). Part of this build-up included the stress of having a very annoying senior peer (played by Jim Parsons) who knows he is less smart than she is and tries to dominate her as much as he can. (Incidentally, "Loving", another movie released in late 2016 also highlighted racist laws in Virginia during the same time period.)The directing by Theodore Melfi is rather conventional in a Hollywood way yet the effect worked by the end as I wanted to stand up and cheer during the closing credits. After the film, I pondered the question: how many other hidden histories are waiting to be told?