*/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B+
starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner
screenplay by Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi, based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly
directed by Theodore Melfi
by Walter Chaw Theodore Melfi’s Hidden Figures is so inextricably bonded to the rote motions of awards-season biographical uplift melodrama that it functions as proof of a template studios give to directors who won’t kick too much about art and individuality and expression and all that high-falutin’ stuff. Better, it’s proof of an attachment that fits onto the Studio sausage press ensuring that all the mashed and salted discards are extruded in the proper proportion into the collective cow gut. Hidden Figures is the story of three African-American women in the 1960s who go to work for NASA’s Mercury program in the days after the Sputnik launch. It talks about how they’re brilliant but forced to pee in segregated bathrooms; how they’re proud family women but treated like second-class citizens or worse. It positions a white man of power who sees their value all the way through to letting one of the ladies be a co-author on a report she seems to have written herself. It has the end-credits thing where pictures of the real women whose stories the movie ostensibly tells are shown with titles detailing the horrific shit they endured to get their names on a building. Well, one of them anyway. It even has that thing in movies about numbers where there’s a lot of running to try to make math exciting to watch. What it doesn’t have is any lingering impact whatsoever: no gravitas, no surprise, no interest, nothing. The only thing to say about Hidden Figures, really, is that if you spend time praising it, you’re being patronizing–and that is the very definition of irony.
Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) is brilliant. So are Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). They’re all three of them brilliant. They’re also black, meaning they’re looked down upon by casually racist colleagues Vivian Michael (Kirsten Dunst) and Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons). To be fair, Stafford may be more misogynistic than racist. Their boss is Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), who, because he looks just like Kevin Costner, is the white person Polaris around which black melodramas intended to make white audiences feel good about their lack of casual racism revolves. Al just wants to get things done and is surprised when Katherine gives an impassioned, spit-flecked rail about how she has to run across the campus to use the coloured restrooms. This leads to the uplifting moment where Al knocks down the “coloured ladies” sign above the restroom and declares that, at NASA, everyone is the same colour. What colour is that, I wonder? If they’re all black now, he should’ve left the sign up. Anyway, he does this because Katherine is the best computer they have, going through reams of numbers with her beautiful mind to the consternation of chief antagonist Stafford. If you think Stafford will come around eventually, well…you’re right. Good work!
Everything mildly interesting the film has to say about the Mercury program was said better by The Right Stuff. Everything the film has to say about race was said better by the “Race Together” fiasco Starbucks thought was a good idea last awards season. Between the issues, find a church-picnic scene where Katherine sees Jim Johnson (Mahershala Ali) and her sassy friends conspire to help her get her groove back. Yes, there’s a romance shoehorned in here because any story about three brilliant black women scientists has to involve a handsome Prince Charming to save her from her loneliness. I like the proposal scene where Melfi does his best to wring some tears from adorable-kid reaction shots. See, Hidden Figures isn’t so much racist as it is misogynistic. Is there such a thing as paternalistic misogyny, or is that a misnomer? One of the other women–Mary, I think–also has a husband who is a stand-in for violent protest. He doesn’t like that his wife has to demean herself and work for The Man, but if you think he’ll come around eventually, well, you’re right again. You’ve been paying attention, nice job.
Hidden Figures is a relic. It’s the kind of movie where you compliment the performances and then trail off because there’s nothing much left to say that won’t make you sound like a jerk. It’ll inspire Google searches wondering if that scene where all the ladies march to a gospel song with a smug look on their faces as the white folks look on actually happened that way or is, you know, condescending bullshit. The little it teaches about an important history is taught without much context or insight into how it’s important, or why. The picture engages a conversation that’s all the more important for our being on the precipice of another Dark Ages, but has absolutely nothing to say. At least a quarter of this population believes that science and education are a plot against them; it’s become clear there are no guardians at the gate. There’s just Hidden Figures, this feel-good piece of shit that reassures everyone that everything will work out, that everything is OK. Oh, and that ignorant, hateful dumpster-fire in a suit who is antithetical to everything you believe in? I’m sure he’ll come around eventually, too. Originally published: January 5, 2017.
THE BLU-RAY DISC
by Bill Chambers Fox brings Hidden Figures to Blu-ray in a 2.39:1, 1080p presentation. It’s not the fault of the transfer that the image betrays some rather flat lighting–much of the film looks fluorescent-lit, in or out of cement buildings–and a tedious teal-and-orange colour grade with ruddy skin tones. Dynamic range is good within a fairly narrow spectrum of contrast, although the hairstyles of all three leading ladies exhibit traces of crush now and again. Shot on 35mm, the movie has a richly cinematic, vintage Panavision texture–complete with authentic blue lens flares–that translates beautifully to the format. Grain is minimal but that’s par for the anamorphic course, and any noise-reduction that was done in post feels very natural. The attendant 5.1 DTS-HD MA track has lovely warmth and clarity to compensate for the general reserve of the mix. That said, the space launches do deliver sufficient boom, enough that John Glenn’s takeoff upset my cat bigly. A second audio track reunites director Theodore Melfi and actress Taraji P. Henson for an enthusiastic full-length commentary. At one point, Melfi mentions that costume designer Renee Kalfus insisted on the film’s female stars wearing girdles and Henson corrects him that it was the actresses who insisted on it, in Henson’s case not just to be Method but also to correct her slouchy, smart-phone-era posture. While they ultimately don’t do much more than lavish praise on their collaborators–Henson really loved working with Kevin Costner, evidently–and highlight the parts of Hidden Figures that are 100% accurate, there is the odd interesting anecdote pertaining to the production itself. For instance, the reason Costner chews gum in the movie is that he needed a way to convey nerves after the higher-ups forbid the depiction of smoking, even though it would’ve been period-appropriate.
Launching the video-based HD extras is “Hidden Figures: It All Adds Up” (42 mins.), a multi-part making-of that opens with a brief but fascinating summary of NASA’s formation. Arguably absent in the subtext of Hidden Figures? That NASA didn’t just hire black women as computers because they needed the manpower, but also because engineers considered themselves too good for calculating, thus depreciating the value of the job. 97-year-old Katherine G. Johnson is quite a bit more loquacious than one expects from her appearance at this year’s Oscars, recalling the job without imparting it with any particular uplift (“The main thing I liked about working out there was that I was working with smart people. And I like smart people”)–leaving that task to the other interviewees, who seem happy to take up the slack. What intrigued me most is the unusual candour of the piece from an industry perspective, with Melfi and producer Donna Gigliotti humble-bragging that Melfi turned down an opportunity to do the Spider-Man reboot in order to make Hidden Figures. I guess it lends credibility to the choice of this relatively unknown white dude to direct the film. Later, Gigliotti boasts that women comprised 33% of the movie’s crew, leading to a mini-profile of DP Mandy Walker, who talks about being influenced by Civil Rights-era photographers like Gordon Parks. Next up, “Filming in Georgia” (5 mins.) focuses on the advantages of shooting in Atlanta beyond the tax incentives. Atlanta’s demographics have progressed considerably since the ’60s, but fortunately for the filmmakers its architecture has not.
A 10-minute block of eight deleted scenes presents this elided material in pristine condition. A curious one has Dorothy stopping on the way to her car to help change a tire for Kirsten Dunst’s Vivian, who awkwardly blurts out that she’s divorced and that her husband found her too headstrong, something to which the quasi-single Dorothy can relate. I suppose it prematurely humanized Vivian, but it also begs the question: if Dorothy is walking to her car alone, how the hell are Katherine and Mary getting home? There’s also some additional time with side characters like Levi and Paul, and a bit where Katherine, fresh from the bathroom fiasco (her hair is still matted wet), defiantly dines in the whites-only lunchroom. Some muddy direction makes the scene’s intentions inscrutable; I wish I could say that Melfi’s optional commentary comes to our aid, though at least he appears to recognize that it’s a contrived moment at best. Rounding out the special features are “sneak peeks” at Rules Don’t Apply, the radioactive The Birth of a Nation, Miss Sloane, and The Martian, plus two barely-distinguishable trailers for Hidden Figures proper; I’m so used to studios leaving a movie’s own trailers off its Blu-ray release that the inclusion of the latter was a surprise. A pleasant one? Sure, why not. Kudos to Fox, too, for providing elective English subtitles for the whole supplemental shebang. Previews for Step, Mars, and Jackie cue up on startup of the disc, which comes with DVD and digital copies of Hidden Figures. 4K UHD version sold separately.
127 minutes; PG; 2.39:1 (1080p/MPEG-4); English 7.1 DTS-HD MA, English DVS 5.1, French DD 5.1, Spanish DD 5.1, Portuguese DD 5.1, Czech DD 5.1, Urdu DD 5.1, Turkish DD 5.1, Hungarian DD 5.1, Hindi DD 5.1, Thai DD 5.1; English SDH, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Korean, Malay, Mandarin (Simplified), Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese subtitles; BD-50 + DVD-9; Region A; Fox
