Hidden Figures

[Eric Mc]

A film about the three African American ladies who served as key "computers" in the early American space programme.
It's opening on Friday 17 February and I'm really looking forward to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK8xHq6dfAo

[gregs656]

This has been out in the states for a couple of months and I have seen it, absolutely loved it. Will definitely be seeing it in the cinema.

[Eric Mc]

I've found one little anomaly in it already - although it's understandable.

The character of Al Harrison as played by Kevin Costner did not exist in real life. He is a composite character meant to represent a combination of a number of key individuals in NASA's management team. The person he is closest to is Dr Robert Gilruth - who was head of the Space Task Group at Langley Virginia and of whom I have only ever read good things.

[gregs656]

I haven't looked into it too deeply but apparently there was a significant amount of research done for the book so the source material for the film is good. Indeed some of the key lines in the film are lifted from conversations which happened, which is nice.

Absolutely incredible story though and told in such a way as to make it enormously accessible. It is being released as PG over here which is great.

Really looking forward to seeing it again.

[Eric Mc]

Hope to go sometime next week.

[gregs656]

Doesn't seem to have been well advertised here. Hopefully it hangs around in the cinemas long enough for people to hear about it.

[ajprice]

Saw it at Odeon Screen Unseen. Yep it's good . I will say avoid the trailers if you can, the one above is the film compressed to 3 minutes, another one I saw at the cinema last week shows a lot too.

Edited by ajprice on Wednesday 15th February 19:45

[GCH]

It has been open here for a while... worth seeing.

[Jimmy Recard]

Those composite characters often help adapt a true story to film - Carl Hanratty in Catch Me if you Can comes to mind.

[zoom star]

I saw this film last night, my wife got some free tickets,all I can say is it was an enjoyable 2 hours and 5 minutes.
I just watched it for what it was,and the two stories of American history running alongside,at one point I must admit brought a few tears to my eyes..don't tell the wife..

[ian in lancs]

Best film I've seen for a long time

[peterperkins]

Excellent film. Both me and GF thoroughly enjoyed it. Inspiring... and unsettling in equal measure. Most American's must feel pretty ashamed of all those years of segregation.

[Eric Mc]

Went to see it yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. It lifts a blind on how difficult it was for ordinary but intelligent and ambitious African Americans to advance themselves in a segregated society.

As a bit of a student of the early space programmes of the USA and the Soviet Union I did spot all the anomalies in the historical record as portrayed by the narrative - but at the end of the day that didn't spoil it for me as the overall story is essentially true and compelling.