Hidden Figures

With Hidden Figures you get a two-for-one deal. It tells the story of the forgotten black women who worked on the early days of the space program in the US, just like it's advertised as, but it also goes deeper and explores the damaging nature of the segregation laws that were present in many of the southern US states during the 1960s. Those two parts combine to make an impactful and inspirational story.

In 1961, Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson) works at NASA, crunching numbers on whatever project she is assigned to. She is one of a larger group of black female mathematicians that do this job that also includes Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monaé). One day she is hired by Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) and his Space Task Group in order to put a man into space. There is immense pressure to do so from the government, as the Soviets have not only launched their series of satellites, but they have beaten the US in sending a man into space. Since Katherine is a black woman, she has the twin obstacles in proving that she can actually do the job and gain the respect of her colleagues.

After doing some research, I found out that the segregation of the facility in which they work had been basically non-existent since the 1950s. The reason I mention that fact is that it leaves the film in a strange limbo. The movie is very much about being a black person in the 1960s and the majority of society was subject to these Jim Crow laws, but at the same time the film has to be true to experiences of the people being portrayed in the film. I think that director Theodore Melfi balances these two elements really well and that although the segregation laws may not have affected these women in the ways presented in the film, it allows the audience to extrapolate them into the rest of society.

To make these strong women believable and sympathetic, they need to be backed up by strong performances from the female leads. Luckily this movie has plenty of those. Taraji P. Henson transforms into Katherine Goble so completely it's fantastic. She is able to really convey the strength and confidence that the Goble must have had to work in a completely male environment at a time when women were not at all seen as intelligent beings. I am a huge fan of Octavia Spencer and whenever I see something that she's in, I know that she is going to give the best she can and she doesn't disappoint. Especially when it comes to being the comic relief of the three leads, something that she excels at. It seems that to get your film nominated for best picture you need to put Janelle Monaé in it, because she has been in two Oscar nominated films this year (the other being Moonlight). Her character's struggle against segregation is the more amazing of the three as she became the first qualified black female engineer for NASA, which is no small feat. It's also worth noting that if you want to make a movie set during the Cold War, there is an obligation to put Kevin Costner in it.

Hidden Figures is an incredibly inspirational movie. I know that we don't live in a world that has such open discrimination where racism is acceptable (in most countries at least), it is good to be told a story that you can do whatever you want if you work really hard to go out and get it. This is especially true of a world where the pay gap between the genders is so big when it shouldn't be.

Moonlight

Barry Jenkin’s coming-of-age drama Moonlight may struggle to win over audiences that feed-off the latest high-concept blockbuster, but this composed and affecting three-part story brings a sorely-needed intimacy and contemplation back to the cinema.

Growing up in a world that he doesn’t understand and that doesn’t understand him, Chiron (Alex Hibbert), nicknamed “Little”, struggles to come to terms with his Mum’s drug-addiction, his troubles at school, and his sexuality. Docile in physical size and personality, Chiron’s only companions are his school friend Kevin (Jaden Piner), a kind-spirited drug-dealer he befriends, Juan (Mahershala Ali), and Juan’s affectionate girlfriend, Teresa (Janelle Monáe). These relations help define Chiron as he slowly tries to breaks free of his skin as a teenager (played by Ashton Sanders) and as an adult (played by Trevante Rhodes), in each act he’s very much a minor evolution of his former self, at his core he’s still “Little”.

Moonlight stems from a small drama school project by American playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, and Barry Jenkin’s manages to sustain the collected, deeply personal and reflective elements of the piece which ultimately define the film itself. As I said before, this will not appeal to the low attention-span audiences that only attend the modern blockbuster, but they’re not the sort of people who would willingly see Moonlight.

The more refined three-chapter structure of Jenkin’s script perhaps addresses the concerns of the few detractors to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and its (in-effect) 12-part story - but whilst it might be the most comparable contemporary film to Moonlight, they are not one in the same. Where Boyhood aimed to be smooth in transition, Moonlight makes a point to divide Chiron’s deeply-personal odyssey into three distinct short-stories. These contained periods each define and build upon the whole of the man, and as the film cuts to black you feel not as if you’ve followed a boy growing up, but more as if you’ve been privileged to witness the determinate moments in the building of a character.

Neither strategy is better or worse, they’re both simply designed to serve the needs of their story. Boyhood’s Mason has an arguably normal (for a white family) set of circumstances growing up that the free-roaming structure celebrates. Chiron’s life is anything but normal in comparison to Mason, and the challenges he faces are immense, hence each new chapter is a reactionary reflection of the last and an indictment of representational issues in the film making community.

Each of these three periods emerges through the extraordinary performances of the Chiron actors. Hibbert’s “Little” is uncertain, shy and confused. Sanders’ Chiron is dejected, independent and desperately reaching out for an understanding. Rhodes’ “Black” is informed, sentimental and as equally uncertain as his young self. One character, three actors, three dominant portrayals. Then in support you have a similar situation with Kevin, one of Naomie Harris’s best performances, and Mahershala Ali s the knavish yet fostering Juan.

Much like its structure, Moonlight is at its most poignant and honest across a few moments where the dialogue drops and Nicholas Britell’s score comes in, teaming up with James Laxton’s breathtaking cinematography to beckon the audience into the most intimate moments of Chiron’s episodic pilgrimage of self. It’s the superb acting, writing and structure that build Chiron into a tour de force of empathy, but it’s these scattered moments of directorial finesse that allow us to truly understand him.