NASA’s hidden story told with a big bang

vividly effective scenes of Dorothy teaching herself to program a new piece of technology called the IBM, and Mary pursuing her engineering degree at a local allwhite high school. Some of the film’s most stirring scenes feature the hackneyed conceit of clueless white folk being enlightened by their African-American educators, but Henson, Spencer and Monáe give them grit and knowing gravitas.

If characters played by Jim Parsons and Kirsten Dunst sometimes seem too cruel to be true, they feature in some of the film’s most bluntly effective scenes. Costner is ideally suited to play the rumpled Harrison, portrayed here as a man too focused and distracted to have time for petty prejudices.

Attractively shot and designed and driven along by a catchy score by Pharrell Williams (who’s also a producer), Hidden Figures is pure pleasure to watch. (It’s Katherine’s breathtakingly precise calculations that allow astronaut John Glenn and his team to launch and land safely.) Viewers old enough to remember how that voyage went will find it infused with new energy; those who don’t are in for an unforgettable ride.

With Glenn’s recent death, Hidden Figures has taken on even more poignancy and timeliness. It’s difficult to imagine a more stirring way to honour his memory. – The Washington Post