Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures

 Until fairly recently nerds really didn't get that much attention in film. If present at all, it was usually as comic relief in some teen comedy best forgotten. Rarer still was (and to some degree still is) the depiction of female nerds, and African-American female nerds are so rarely seen as to be virtually unheard of. This is why this movie, about a group of female African-American mathematicians who worked for NASA in the 1960s is called Hidden Figures.

It resembles other mid-20th Century nerd biopics like A Beautiful Mind and The Imitation Game, Hidden Figures deals with gravely misunderstood and mistreated individuals whose work was critically important to the governments of the Western powers. But unlike those other films, Hidden Figures deals with an entire group of women who worked behind the scenes at NASA rather than just on one individual - focusing on three notable members of the group.

Entertaining and enlightening without becoming ponderous, Hidden Figures is a good reminder that The Right Stuff wasn't limited to just astronauts.