Can a rather trite movie, padded with saccharine clichés, still emerge as a triumphant drama when its exuberance and winsome charms overshadow its formulaic core? Theodore Melfi’s vibrant “Hidden Figures” makes the strongest case in 2016 for a crowd-pleasing narrative that overcomes Hollywood-made boilerplate banality, perhaps even exploiting these feel-good trappings for its own end. Melfi’s warm and fuzzy sensibilities aren’t for everyone. His feature-length directorial debut, the likable, perhaps lightweight “St. Vincent” starring Bill Murray, was met with mixed responses in some circles, but like “Hidden Figures,” the filmmaker undeniably knows how to coax captivating performances out of actors that make for almost entirely endearing movies.
A touching and inspiring tale that is, yes, often hackneyed at times, “Hidden Figures” continues that schema: a familiar story of overcoming the odds, conventionally told, that succeeds nonetheless thanks to its entertaining sparkle, a crisp stride and terrific actors that elevate the material. Set across the backdrop of the Jim Crow South, “Hidden Figures” centers on three African-American women who work at NASA during a period where the Cold War still chills and the burgeoning civil-rights movement begins its fight for equality and opportunity. Based on Margot Lee Shetterly‘s nonfiction book of the same name, in this era the space race is on and Russia has scored a leg up by placing the first cosmonaut into Earth’s orbit. With American pride on the line, the American government presses NASA to step up its game ASAP. Melfi’s film follows three unlikely women who become key to NASA’s space race in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who worked behind the scenes in helping the government agency rise to prominence and beat their counterparts behind the Iron Curtain. The trio included the preternaturally gifted Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), the brilliant mathematician known as “the computer;” and her co-workers, Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), another highly skilled employee vying for a supervising position, and the sassy and brassy Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), who has ambitions to break into an engineering position at NASA — unheard of for a woman at the time, let alone an African-American. This is essentially the story of how three women helped put the (recently departed) John Glenn into outer space and the challenges they faced to be heard and find respect among their white peers.
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Of course, working in the segregated computers division of Langley Research Center where the girls are third-class citizens isn’t easy. They face daily discrimination, all forms of prejudice and, at times, flat-out-ugly racism. As Melfi’s film straightforwardly, perhaps crudely, tells it, all the women are visionary and extraordinary, but because of the color of their skin, they occupy the lower rungs at NASA’s headquarters in Virginia. The film, with its populist sensibilities, then tracks their slow ascent of proving their value to the bigots who don’t understand their worth. Yes, they succeed and “overcome” the odds, but the ladies’ moxie is rousing; their hard-fought resilience feels well-earned despite what are obvious platitudes. So, “Hidden Figures” is rather predictable and features few revelations, and yet its canny ability to stir the heart with its empowering message is surprisingly convincing and joyful.
Characters meant to act as the oppressors – Kevin Costner as a hard-ass NASA chief, and Kirsten Dunst as an executive supervisor who sneers down at her negro staff — are both effective and rather stock. But take Kevin Costner, for instance, playing the definitive Kevin Costner role — a stern, take-no-guff, impatient figure who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. This is a role he can play in his sleep, and one we’ve seen the actor render hundreds of times before. But the performance is so fine-tuned, it works well in what is Melfi’s unchallenging but melodious form.
Music is a big source of the movie’s radiance. Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch elevate some of the cheesier elements, infusing them with a heart-swelling pride. In fact, it’s their anthemic, swirling-with-emotional music that bolsters much of “Hidden Figures”’ inspirational feeling. On the other hand, Bruno Mars’ contemporary, anachronistic soul singles rob the movie of greater consistency — vintage R&B and soul would have been much more appropriate.
Performance-wise, all the actors are top-notch and Taraji P. Henson, who usually plays brassy characters, goes against type and delivers a fabulous turn as the reserved and meek lead. Spencer is dependably solid as always, but the breakthrough performance in the film is modern-soul-singer-turned-actress Janelle Monáe. After a strong turn in “Moonlight,” Monáe is having a terrific year, and in “Hidden Figures” she pops and steals scenes aplenty. The always-exceptional Mahershala Ali puts in some brief but effective time as a military officer with designs on Henson’s heart.
I should stop apologizing for liking “Hidden Figures” so much. It’s just that it sounds incredibly prosaic when put down on paper — and in many ways, it is — but it’s a testament to Melfi’s warm and buoyant filmmaking and the trio of exceptional actresses that the film’s jubilant mood outshines its conventional trappings. It doesn’t hurt that it works as a rousing feminist manifesto, too: the kind of message you want all little girls, no matter their color or creed, to hear loud and clear.
Melfi cannot help his sentimental tendencies, and “Hidden Figures” veers dangerously close to treacly territory in its last act, but the genuinely thrilling moments of the will-they-or-won’t-they final rocket launch is tremendously exciting. Melfi’s team knows editing, too, and the deft intercutting to ratchet up tension in the climax works brilliantly.
And there’s just delight — manufactured or otherwise — to be found in the story of underrepresented women showing up their often-demeaning authoritarians; it’s hard not to root for the underdogs of this tale. Given the brutal hardship members of the civil-rights movement endured, there’s also catharsis to be found in gifted individuals beating the odds at every turn. If “Hidden Figures” is a movie of the week — which many will argue it is — then it’s nevertheless a completely charismatic and watchable one.
A paean to the unsung, “Hidden Figures” is also a romanticized tribute to everyday problem solvers who, in the movie’s eyes, are their own kind of superheroes. It’s not unlike many other origin stories you’ve seen in recent years, but it might be the mostly lovely version that’s come around of late. “By reaching for the stars and overcoming the odds, they found greatness” isn’t a pedestrian tag line in “Hidden Figures,” but it might as well be. And yet with spunky determination and spirit, Melfi’s film still manages to calculate the path to a winning formula that succeeds. [B]