Biopics are becoming all the rage now, aren't they? Whether telling you about the history of a single person who changed the world, the growth of a company that we see every day, failures, successes, or everything in between, there's a lot that can be done with a biopic. Unfortunately, the other side of the" coin of variety", so to speak, is that biopics will often fall into the same old patterns. Plot, characters, conflicts, resolutions, they all tend to follow the same general formula. Sometimes, a film ends up being nothing more than an amalgamation of biopic tropes, and falls flat when it tries to be inspiring and uplifting. Sometimes a movie like this gets nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, which leads to confusion from me. If you can't tell, I'm talking about Hidden Figures. I know, it was subtle.
This film was fairly big disappointment for me, because I found the premise so interesting. We follow Katherine G. Johnson (Tiraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), three black women working for NASA. With the space race between Russia and the USA heating up, we see how influential these women were to providing mathematical data that made John Glenn's orbital mission in 1962. While this is no doubt an important story to be told, I felt let down by the actual way that it was told. If you've seen a biopic with a story like this before, especially one so involved with race relations, you'll be able to predict how the story will unfold petty much beat for beat (especially if you watched the trailer). What keeps biopics interesting is how the genre can evolve and innovate, but Hidden Figures does nothing like that. Rather, it just goes through the motions, and delivers exactly the film that I expected.
There isn't much to praise in terms of performance, because I didn't feel that anyone did that great of a job. Tiraji P. Henson, as the lead of the story, doesn't do much more than act flustered for the majority of the movie. Janelle Monáe is also pretty one-note, and while she was charismatic enough, she didn't have that much to do. Octavia Spencer portrays her usual strong, likeable persona, but I've seen that before, and although she was easily the best of the three, it's nothing that she hasn't done before. The supporting cast was a mixed bag; Kevin Costner actually gives a performance with some life and energy rather than his usual monotonous flat-line, and Jim Parsons is fine, although this role doesn't show off much range. On the other hand, Kirsten Dunst's terrible accent drags her performance down pretty far, and every other minor actor is fairly bland. Mahershala Ali, although he didn't have a huge part, was easily the best part (but that can be said about most things he's been in recently). This is the kind of film that I wanted great performances out of, to elevate the familiar material, but everyone is just kind of okay.
I was almost shocked by how predictable everything was. As soon as certain characters or story beats are introduced, it's fairly clear where it's all heading. The film certainly doesn't tackle race relations in a subtle way, though it's such a big part of the story that it didn't need to be suppressed in any way. But because scenes of the race relations aspect of the women's lives and careers are somewhat few and far between, they're incorporated in such a blunt and sudden way. It's about the level of subtle writing one would expect from a Lifetime original movie. Equally as sudden and blunt are the "inspirational" moments, where characters will say things that people wouldn't say in real life, and then all of a sudden nobody's racist anymore. Other elements of the story felt rushed, like a romantic subplot with Katherine. It just kind of appears, then we see the characters together for a scene or two, and then they're married. The film wants you to feel all of the emotional payoff of these moments, but it's missing the essential steps that lead to that payoff. The moments where the film wants you to clap are very clear.
The period isn't especially engrossing, and the only time the film has some real personality was in the soundtrack. Whether it's some classic pop songs or the very unique score, I found myself tapping my foot, but scenes without music don't have any real punch. Most of the film was just flat, so when it reached so hard for those applause-worthy moments, it sticks out as desperate. This is a feel-good movie through and through, from the music swelling after every somewhat victorious moment to the montage of the women's careers at the end. It almost feels artificial, like a bunch of ideas had been put through an Oscar-bait machine, and this is the film that got spat out. I wished from beginning to end that this film would elevate itself above my expectations, but even the opening scene is indicative of the kind of movie that Hidden Figures really is. It's blatant and it's not doing anything new.
While Hidden Figures is definitely a story worth telling, I wish that it was told in a more engaging way. These three women are inspirational on their own, but this film tries so hard for the most basic and easy inspirational tone that it never got me on-board. The best thing that this film does is get this story into the public, and I'm glad that I have a new awareness of who contributed to these impactful events in world history. The film has a talented cast, but everything is weighed down by mediocre storytelling and a complete adherence to the tropes of the "inspirational biopic" genre. It's a largely forgettable experience as well; I could only remember about a minute of the story just hours after watching it. I feel like biopics are still trying to capture that lightning in a bottle that was The Social Network, but this film comes nowhere close. Outside of the Oscar nominations, I don't see Hidden Figures staying in public consciousness for too long, either.
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