Review of Hidden Figures (2016) by Gavin S — 11 Mar 2017

Katherine, Dorothy and Mary are three brilliantly gifted Black women working for NASA at the beginning of the 1960's and the space race, they are the 'hidden figures' that, at a time just before the dawn of electronic computers, do, by hand, the calculations that launch the Gemini missions to put American men into space. The title also refers to the figures hidden, for security reasons, from mathematical genius Katherine in the calculations she is tasked to check.

I understand that this is based on the true story of three exceptional women whose achievements were even more impressive than portrayed in the film. The film telescopes their stories from several years to around a couple of years preceding the first Gemini mission and there are incidents that are fictionalised for dramatic purposes but I don't begrudge the film makers that liberty. It works as a film and introduces us to a piece of history that we never knew existed.