Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi. It is loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. The film stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and other missions. It also features Octavia Spencer as NASA supervisor and mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monáe as NASA engineer Mary Jackson. Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge and Glen Powell in supporting roles.
About Hidden Figures in brief
Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi. It is loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. The film stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and other missions. It also features Octavia Spencer as NASA supervisor and mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monáe as NASA engineer Mary Jackson. Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge and Glen Powell in supporting roles. It had a limited release on December 25, 2016, by 20th Century Fox, before going wide in the United States on January 6, 2017. It received critical acclaim, with praise for the performances, particularly that of Henson, Monae and Spencer, the writing, direction, cinematography, emotional tone and historical accuracy. Some argued it featured a white savior narrative. It was a commercial success, grossing USD 236 million worldwide against its USD 25 million production budget. It won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The film was chosen by National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2016 and received various awards and nominations, including three nominations at the 89th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In 1961, Katherine Johnson works as a human computer in the West Area Computers division of the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. She is the first black woman on the team; head engineer Paul Stafford is especially dismissive of her.
They are all African-American women; the unit is segregated by race and sex. Katherine impresses Harrison by solving a complex mathematical equation from redacted documents, as the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Yuri Gagarin increases pressure to send American astronauts into space. Mary files a petition for permission to attend all-white Hampton High School, despite her husband’s opposition. She wins over the local judge by appealing to his sense of history, allowing her to attend night classes. Mary is assigned to the space capsule heat shield team, where she immediately identifies a design flaw. Dorothy learns an IBM 7090 electronic computer that threatens to replace human computers. The day of the launch, Katherine is asked to check the landing coordinates of the John Glenn’s capsule. She marries Jim Jim Johnson and marries him in 1962. Katherine is reassigned to the West area, and she marries Jim Jim Johnson in 1963. Dorothy steals a book about Fortran and teaches herself about programming and starts the computer room and successfully supervises the machine. In 1965, Dorothy is promoted to supervise the Programming Department; she accepts only on the condition that thirty of her co-workers are transferred as well. In 1966, Dorothy learns that the department no longer needs human computers; she delivers the coordinates for John Glenn’s launch. In 1967, Dorothy marries James Jim Johnson, and they have a son.
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