Hidden Figures (PG). Director: Theodore Melfi. Starring: Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons. 127 minutes
Writing for the Guardian about the critical backlash surrounding La La Land — on the basis of, among other things, its treatment of race and gender — Hadley Freeman notes this is now the pop cultural world we live in. 'Every piece of art is now politicised and parsed for its problematic elements,' she writes. 'These complaints may take some of the joy out of a film intended only to entertain, but they also reveal vital perspectives that have been hidden for too long from our white-male dominated discourse.'
Far be it from me to want to take the joy out of Hidden Figures. The film — one of a trio of films about the experiences of Black Americans that are in contention for this year's Best Picture Oscar — has a great story to tell. It takes as its focus the experiences of Black women living in 1950s America. It's a time where segregation is official policy and the civil rights movement is heating up. At the same time US-Russian relations are colder than ever, one expression of which is found in the burgeoning space race.
Against this backdrop a crew of Black American women, prodigious mathematicians, is working at NASA. Their segregation is manifest in a lack of job security and opportunities for progression; in the disdainful stares of their White colleagues; in the demarcation of physical spaces, including bathrooms. In discourse about disadvantage we talk about intersectionality, where multiple categories of discrimination overlap; as Black women these characters face challenges to their social flourishing on multiple fronts.
At least three of them are destined to make history. Mary Jackson (Monáe) will become the first Black female engineer at the American space agency. Dorothy Vaughan (Spencer) will find herself supervisor of the department running the monolithic IBM computer that might, if not for her own resourcefulness and ingenuity, have signalled her obsolescence at NASA. Most thrillingly, Katherine Johnson (Henson) will play a key role in navigating the vertiginous mathematics involved in achieving a return journey to space.
Hidden Figures tells their stories with aplomb. The writing and performances draw us into the women's lives. Katherine is subject to a (admittedly tepid) romantic subplot that typifies the film's appeal to a broad, sympathetic audience.
"Accusations of 'cultural appropriation' might be uncharitable. There is