Les Figures de l'ombre

My grandson advised me to watch this movie. I'm not much of a movie watcher but was greatly impressed with the movie. I was employed by a major company in the late 60's This movie occurred a little before that. I was actually a teen when John Glen took his trip into space. I and many other blacks had no knowledge of this crew of women and how they contributed to the NASA project. In the late 60's, there were race riots and lots of racial conflicts. I remember in my senior year, Westinghouse Electric was located in a black community but had no black employees. They came to the black high schools and wanted the top 3 stenographers from each school to apply to their company. This was based on efforts from the community to hire black employees. We were tested. We all had to have 3.8-4.0 QPA's and be able to type 80-100 words per minute and transcribe at 100 wpm. I was 1 of the lucky ones. I had an academic diploma with business classes as my minor. Ten women were hired. I was so excited. But the minute I walked out on the floor, all eyes were on me. There were no black/white bathrooms, but we were pushed to the back of the line and not allowed to use the mirrors until all the white girls had left the restrooms. It wasn't a rule, but we were shoved to the back. We were laughed at and talked about in front of our faces. But under no circumstances was I going to allow somebody else to take this job away from me. We took it! We were treated like we were from a 3rd world country. The white girls didn't even know how to change the typewriter ribbons. Their typing speeds only had to be 45-50 to get in. Shucks, I had to be the best! I was awed to have typed on the IBM Selectric typewriter. The same one in the movie! But we had to care for their machines as well as our own. In high school we only had manuals. Eventually I went to Univ of Pgh. to study accounting at night. I took all of the courses required to get out of the steno pool, but was consistently turned down 10 years trying to become an Accounting Clerk. While whites with less education and less seniority were chosen over and over again over me. I had to type for the controller, because of my super fast, error free statistical typing skills while his secretary filed her nails and poured coffee. Of course, I was never paid what she made. To make a long story short, we black women stayed. Some of us for 40 years. It took years before we were looked at like humans--before people would talk to us, eat at the same lunch table, sometimes they would make us wait last to get on the elevators to go home. But over the course of 10- 40 years, we earned that respect. We did become manager secretaries. We did earn engineering degrees at night and worked our way up. We did end up with white women becoming our best friends. We became their bridesmaids instead of their maids. We went to their parties, instead of cleaning up after the parties. This movie may make some people uncomfortable, and perhaps you don't believe it was like that for smart black women, actually any black person. But believe me, I am a living witness at age 67 to recall the bigotry and hatred I once experienced as a young woman 18 years old, only to retire from the company with much respect. Many of my friends that started when I started, are still in touch. We always laugh and say "We were the first." Because we knocked down those walls of prejudice and differences and created a path for people of all colors to follow. I loved the movie. I only wished that those women had been recognized a little sooner for their contributions to the NASA PROJECT. The portrayal of bigotry and indifference is real. It really did happen in the 60's. As a child I remember the black/white bathrooms--not being allowed in Howard Johnson's on the turnpike and going shopping in the department store via the back warehouse door. Katherine was older than me. Did she run almost a mile to the bathroom? Maybe, maybe not. But don't judge this movie based on that. Some real prejudices were worse than that. History cannot be changed, only learned about. I am proud to be a part of that growing history along with Katherine.

In the opinion of this reviewer, an extraordinary achievement.

The characters on which the film is based were special and unique on their own, and well deserving of the sort of semi-documentary films that Hollywood likes to serve up.

However, to take that story and bump it up to a major "feel-good film" that engages the viewer from the getgo and does not let up until the very end of its 2 hour and 5 minute running time, THAT is what elevates this project to greatness.

I want to be clear on this because it is important. There are two ways to do a feel-good film. One is (ironically!) by the numbers, using proved plot arcs and other script devices to make it work. An example of this for example is the latest Disney release MOANA which has taken some heat from critics for being derivative and not original. But that, you see, is the tried and true method to achieve the effect that the producers wanted. And it works.

The other way to make a film engaging and fun is to use your instincts and your actors to get the most from each scene. No rule book, no fixed way of doing a scene, just doing what works. This is, I believe the way that writer/director Theodore Melfi set out to do Hidden Figures, and boy did he pull it off! The acting is stellar. Costner has matured in his latest film roles and his work here is as far from the nonsense he used to do (like the dreaded Robin Hood) as the earth is from the sun.

Taraji P. Henson finally lands a great role, the kind of role she was looking for when she left the hit series Person of Interest a tad early.

And every good film or TV series needs a character who is "the glue" or a reference point that the viewer can use, like a compass needle, to see where we are in the main story. Here Octavia Spencer gives the performance of her life as that "glue" and helps the director to pace the film.

Highly recommended.

I'm an engineer. I designed computers, I grew up in the south during the 1950s and 1960s. I was heavily involved in the space race at an early age and watched every launch and recovery on black-and-white TV. I never saw separate restrooms and drinking fountains for "colored" but they were there. I never rode on segregated public buses, but they were there and I knew it. This movie, "Hidden Figures," brings all of these worlds back to me. No, it's not a painstakingly accurate picture. NASA didn't have flat-panel screens back then. Communications between the ground and the Mercury capsules were not static-free. But a lot of this movie feels real. Very real.

The protagonists in this movie are three women of color working in one of the most unwelcoming environments they might hope to find: NASA Langley, Virginia, in 1961. As women, they were employed as human "computers" because they were less expensive and they got their numbers right. As "colored" folk, they got their own separate (and sparse) restrooms and their own, separate dining facilities. This was not America's shining hour, even in some place as lofty as NASA.

At the same time, civil unrest was rising in the towns. This is the time of Martin Luther King's rise to prominence. It's a time just before the rise of militant civil rights groups. It's a time when resistance to segregation and discrimination was still civil, but as the movie shows, that resistance was beginning to firm up and become widespread.

There are several reasons to see this movie: from a civil rights perspective; from a feminism perspective; from the perspective of the early space race when we lagged the Soviet Union, badly. If you lived during this time, see the movie to remember. If you were born later, see this movie to see what things were like.

"Hidden Figures" came out several months ago and there are already quite a few reviews for it. Because of this, I don't plan on saying a lot.

The film is the story of some inspiring black women who worked in the space program during an era when black women were highly marginalized. The acting is terrific and the production all around is well made and enjoyable. Not surprisingly, the movie did well in the box office and no doubt you'll have a nice time if you see the film.

Do I have any quibbles? Well, a few details here and there were changed to make the story more cinematic...which is the norm for Hollywood films and something I can look past since the story is essentially true.

This is the true story of three African-American women who worked for NASA on the Mercury program in the early 1960s. Solid performances by all, some laugh-out-loud scenes, and some very emotional moments. It's also an important look back at the civil rights issues of the time period. The climax is a bit Apollo 13ish, and I'm fairly certain some scenes were embellished, but who cares. You should walk away from this film smiling, maybe even a bit choked up.

And in spite of it being an overall positive experience, I could feel the oppression at certain points - Dorothy at the library just trying to find the right book, but it is in a part of the library to which she cannot gain admittance due to her race. Mary being reminded that she must sit in the back of the court room, again because of her race. Katherine runs across campus just to find a bathroom that she is allowed to use and never once complaining about it until she is publicly berated about her use of time. Kevin Costner's character appears to be a generally good person who doesn't care about race, and yet still never even thought about the difficulty of being forced into a certain bathroom half a mile away.

You don't need to understand the mathematics to enjoy the film, but I admit, it was fun to hear some concepts I haven't heard since my college days.

The theater was almost full, with people of all ages. I was particularly happy to see some kids there, as there is much for them to take away from this film.

Twice during the movie the audience broke into applause, and then applauded at the end credits as well. I don't recall the last time I heard that at a film. And most importantly - I did not see a cell phone light up the whole time - truly a miracle.