Hidden Figures * * * 1/2

 I’ll try and "sum" this up the best I can for you.  (Well someone had to start off a review like that).

Hidden Figures is based on a true story.

3 gals who put a rocket under NASA

    Three “coloured” (as they were referred to back then) women with extraordinary talent worked for NASA in the sixties. I was surprised to learn that colour segregation extended to a modern institution like NASA, but shamefully, it did.  

    Of the three women, one is an indisputable mathematical genius, one has a natural inclination towards  computers (NASA’s new toy) and one is engaged as a mathematician but finds herself working with the engineers.

    Despite the seriousness of showing the awful prejudice these women endured, Hidden Figures remains quite an upbeat movie, as their self pride and determination shines through: plus there is the excitement of the space race.  It’s not quite The Right Stuff but you really do feel the exhilaration and adventure that would have been associated with NASA at that time.

    With family scenes, laughs, and dealing with bastards and bitches inside NASA Hidden Figures has enough feel good energy to allow you to forgive scenes which frequently stretch credibility - like Astronaut John Glenn in his space suit insisting on a last minute phone call to that black girl who is good with maths.  He wants her to go over the calculations to reassure him before he gets into the capsule.  Or one of the women, going to the library, stealing a book on FORTRAN Computer Language, reading it, and then firing up the new monstrous IBM mainframe when their own technicians couldn't do it.

    The irony of an organisation aspiring to achieve a giant step for mankind, whilst openly practicing racial prejudice cannot be ignored. And I guess that is one of the important themes in this film: the breaking down of segregation.  An American achievement no less inspiring than putting a man into a capsule and launching him into space - and certainly more beneficial to humankind.