Here's the thing about the new film "Hidden Figures." It's a bald-faced, liberal-agenda, Hollywood-ized, fictionalized, feel-good fly-over of a complicated and painful era in our nation's history. It has some of the most ham-fisted lines ever like, "Here we are, three Negro women in 1961 chasing a white police officer down the road…."
And yet, it works. At least it worked on me, and the hundreds of others in my theater whooping it up and cheering and clapping. And that's in the normally uptight Kabuki Sundance Theater.
It works because the three lead actors give solid and committed performances. It works because the story is too unbelievable to be true, and yet the core elements in it all happened. It works because the Space Race is such a great story for the ages, that truly brought out greatness in us all.
It works because of the time in history we find ourselves, and our deep need for stories of people persevering against laws and authorities and systems that would take away their rights and dignity.
Let's all be the Katherine Johnson's, Dorothy Vaughan's and Mary Jackson's that our world really needs right now. Go see it immediately, if you have not already.