Hidden Figures

This movie was released on January 6, 2017. This biographical movie is about three African-American mathematicians working at NASA and their beautiful journey. The movie also depicts the bitter truth of racial discrimination prevailing in the past. The movie is based on the book of the same name ‘Hidden Figures’. This Oscars-nominated movie was directed by Theodore Melfi and the screenplay was written by Theodore Melfi himself and Allison Schroeder.

The cast includes the following actors:

Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson

Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughn

Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson

Kevin Costner as Al Harrison

Glen Powell as John Glenn

Kirsten Dunst as Vivian Mitchell

Jim Parsons as Paul Stafford

Mahershala Ali as Jim Jackson

Aldis Hodge as Levi Jackson

 

Plot Summary:

The movie begins with the time frame of 1961 in America. The opening scene shows Katherine Johnson and her two friends Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson. They work in the calculation department at NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Katherine is a very good mathematician. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson are on their way to work in a car.  Just like every other day, their car stops working on their way. A policeman arrives there and asks for their ids. He even sarcastically comments on their color saying that from when the people like them (he meant black people) started getting jobs at NASA. Actually, the white and black people used to work separately at that time. Whites didn’t use to let the blacks come near to them and in the same way, didn’t even use to talk with them. There was heavy racial discrimination at that time.

 

At that time, America and Russia were in the competition of launching satellites into space so that they could spy on each other. Al Harrison is in charge of this project and is even the head of NASA. Everyone from the military and defense are pressurizing him to launch the satellites as soon as possible because Russia was getting way too forward. No one is helping him but just wants the result. Harrison asks to call someone who is very good at analytical geometry. But no whites were really good at that. So Secretary Mitchell goes to the West group (where the blacks used to work). Katherine and her friends are black. There she gets to know that Katherine is very good at that so she hires her to assist Harrison. Also, her friend Mary gets appointed to the hit shield department. There an engineer Karl Zielinski motivates Mary to become an engineer. But since Mary was a black girl, she was not allowed to study in a school where whites study.

 

Katherine now goes to the East group from the West group. There she doesn’t get much of a warm welcome. One of her co worker even hands her a garbage bin thinking that she must be a cleaner. Everyone stays farther from Katherine. When Harrison gets near to her and talks, he understands that Katherine has the caliber to work. Harrison doesn’t support racial discrimination. Paul, the chief engineer of the workplace doesn’t like Katherine.

 

Katherine asks one of the lady coworkers where the washroom is but the lady denies to tell her. She then goes to the west wing to use the washroom. They don’t even let her use their coffee machines. At the end of the day, Harrison throws all her calculations in the dustbin because he thinks she did everything so quickly in a hurry.

 

Another day a group of astronauts come there. They are getting ready to go to space for the very first time in history. One of the astronauts named John Glenn meets Katherine and her friends. He becomes happy and optimistic looking at them.

 

Paul starts getting more and more troublesome to Katherine. He hides some of the lines of the document so that it becomes difficult for her calculations. But Katherine with all her senses from the remaining data finds out the reason behind the failure of the past missions. Katherine does it so well that Harrison and Paul doubt if she is a Russian spy. They even interrogate her and they find out that she has genuinely done the calculations. Hence he gives him the other set of data for further calculations. Anna on the other hand has cased a file so that she too can study engineering in a white school. She gets approved to join the night class.

 

On the other hand, a piece of news spreads that Russia has successfully sent its astronauts into space. This news makes Harrison mad and makes everyone work overtime. When he checks Katherine at her desk, he doesn’t find her and he gets angry. When she comes there, Harrison shouts at her badly and asks her where she was. Katherine replies that she went to the washroom. He cross-questions her telling her who goes to the washroom for the whole 40 minutes. Katherine replies confidently that she doesn’t get to use a washroom here and that she has to walk half a mile to use the washroom. She even adds that no one comes near to her or talks to her. She tells that she is even given a different coffee machine and after working as hard as possible, she gets only half of the salary she gets. Harrison didn’t know about all this. He goes to the door of the ‘colored washroom’ breaks the board and tells the black ladies that they can use the washroom wherever they want.

 

NASA had to perform very precise calculations to send astronauts to the satellite. So Katherine had to attend high-level meetings too. Before that, neither a lady nor a black human had gone to such meetings. But now Katherine gets to go to the meeting and throw light on her calculations. Everyone attending the meeting gets impressed. Glenn too gets happy looking at Katherine’s work.

 

Katherine does all the calculations of the mission using her skills. But now since the IBM machines have arrived, Harrison tells Katherine that she doesn’t have to do calculations any longer and hence she can go to the west wing back. Hence Katherine has to go to the west wing now. At this time, Paul and his friends have stopped practicing racial discrimination.

 

Rocket is on the verge of launching now. But in the end moment, the calculations done by the IBM computers look faulty. No one gets any idea how that happened. Harrison calls Glenn and Glenn answers that he is ready to go to the space if Katherine does the remaining calculation. Harrison calls Katherine and she performs the calculations. At first, she is not allowed to come inside but later Harrison takes her to the operating room.

 

The calculations become precise and Glenn successfully gets to space and even lands safely. Paul and Katherine become good friends too. Also, Mary successfully graduates from the engineering school. Their other friend Dorothy also becomes the first colored supervisor of NASA. And the story ends with a happy ending. The movie ‘Hidden Figure’ depicts the oppressed hidden figures like Katherine behind the success of such a great project and gives a real view of racial discrimination prevailing in the past and a deep message against racial discrimination.