Hidden Figures add up to success

Janelle Monae (l), Taraji P Henson and Octavia Spencer

It is very rare to see a film about women which takes a celebratory tone. It is even rarer when the women in question are women of colour, which is what makes Hidden Figures such a transcendent experience. It is a joyous, feel-good film which not only celebrates achievement and empowerment but also makes one wonder how this story has remained untold for so long.

The story of America’s conquest of space is invariably told through the filter of the Mercury Seven, John Glenn et al whose story is superbly told in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. However, as fans of Wolfe will know, these men were just ‘spam in a can’ and considered themselves as such. The real challenge faced those whose job it was to get them into space and back again in one piece.

Hidden Figures turns on an accident of timing. To qualify for its massive budget appropriation NASA had to be an equal opportunity employer which meant it had to employ women of colour. No mean feat for an organisation headquartered in the Deep South. Of course it didn’t have to promote them, just employ them.

So this story is one of three women trying to pursue their career dreams in the face of, at best, intransigence and at worst downright opposition. Maths prodigy Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson), administrator Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and scientist Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) are each very good at what they do but are constantly thwarted by prejudice.

Goble has no toilet facilities in her building, Vaughan is denied a promotion she richly deserves, while Jackson is unable to get the qualifications she needs to advance her career because of a segregationist educational policy.

What is remarkable about Hidden Figures is that none of these women requires the saving intervention of a white male. They each have agency in their own resolution and are perfectly capable of sorting things out for themselves. This, I think, is the most important aspect of Hidden Figures, and conversely it is the area which has attracted most criticism.

The film has been accused of a certain ‘made for TV’ sensibility and while I wouldn’t go that far I would concede that it tells its story in broad strokes. However, to my mind, the content is so important that the form has to be as accessible to as many people as possible. This is a film that will inspire women of all ages and ethnicities so why not celebrate the accomplishment of these remarkable women in a feel-good style.

The performances from all three women are marvellous. They bring home the real economic and social cost of racism without ever being strident or preachy. Henson is the flashiest role but the others make a big impression. Mahershala Ali, for the second time this week, contributes a small but memorable role and Kevin Costner continues his career revival in an understated role as the man whose job it is to get all this to work.

The one genuinely transgressive issue with Hidden Figures is in its casting. Jim Parsons is a grudging and narrow-minded scientist while Kirsten Dunst is a prissy, condescending office manager. Neither of them is especially well served by their roles but it does make a change to see the two thankless, stereotypical roles played by white actors.

Moonlight casts a haunting glow

It is hard to know where to start with a film like Moonlight. For one thing, it is a story that you have seen before, the themes are universal after all, it’s just that I can’t recall this story ever told in such an accomplished or affecting way. In some ways, it is a mirror image of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2104), but much more grounded in the real world.

Boyhood famously filmed one group of actors for a fortnight every year for twelve years to create, in effect, a real time narrative. Moonlight tells the story of one young man of colour in Miami over a similar period but uses three separate actors to tell the story.

In our first encounter, we know him as Little (Alex Hibbert), when we next meet him he is Chiron (Ashton Sanders), and in our final encounter he is Black (Trevante Rhodes). These three stories form a triptych of self-discovery as Little responds to the influences of his life and  the circumstances that surround him, until he finally emerges as a young man who is certain of himself if nothing else in his life.

Along the way his encounters with key people in his life are beautifully captured by writer-director Barry Jenkins and an impeccably chosen cast.

The first section deals with Juan (Mahershala Ali) a drug dealer who provides an unlikely steadying influence in Little’s life. In a world of absent male authority figures it is Juan who gives Little some stability.  The second section deals with Chiron’s relationship with his drug-addicted mother Paula (Naomie Harris) and his burgeoning sexuality which finds expression in a tender moment with his friend Kevin (Jharrel Jerome).

When we meet Black, in what we might call episode three, he has been in prison – a result of his retaliation to bullying – but the memory of Kevin has sustained him. This final section is the most familiar, it’s a potentially trite story, but I genuinely struggle to think of having seen this scenario played out like this before. It is honest, affecting, profoundly moving and ultimately hopeful.

The performances throughout are excellent. Hibbert, Sanders, and Rhodes are marvellous as Little/Chiron/Black. Jenkins apparently didn’t let the three actors see each other’s performance, or even meet, so their individual takes on the character make for an interesting approximation of the ageing process and character development.

Mahershala Ali dominates the film; even though he only has a few scenes he is an actor of enormous power. And Naomie Harris is simply terrific in a performance which avoids all the clichés.

Moonlight’s greatest strength is the way it faces toxic racial stereotypes head on and deals with them in an uncompromising manner. These are the conditions that created Black but Jenkins, who comes from a similar area, never lets them define him.

Visually the film is magnificent. Cinematographer James Laxton’s use of colour, allied to Jenkins’ selection of music, brings an ethereal quality to parts of the story rendering it almost spiritual.

Moonlight is probably not going to win the Oscar, even though it should, but it is a film for the ages and, for me, one of the genuinely great films of the 21^st century. This is a film that will be talked about and will resonate long after its Oscar rivals are no more than trivia questions.

Denzel Washington is not confined by Fences

Denzel Washington in Fences

Conventional wisdom has it this year’s Best Actor Oscar has apparently been a lock for such a long time that Casey Affleck could be on the fourth or fifth draft of his acceptance speech by now. That theory however becomes a little less credible following this year’s Screen Actors Guild awards where Affleck surprisingly lost out to Denzel Washington.

Affleck’s portrayal of anger and self-loathing in Manchester by the Sea was beaten by Washington’s tyrannical patriarch in Fences. Given that almost half of the Oscar voters are members of the SAG it would appear to give Washington an edge in the big race, while at the same time pointing out the absurdity of a competitive awards system. These two superb performances are virtual opposites; Affleck is full of quiet fury, Washington is full of bombast and bullying. On the plus side, it is the sort of performance Washington has perhaps needed to give for a while.

At a certain point in their careers I believe actors have the chance to choose whether to be an actor or a star. Washington has been enjoying the fruits of his star phase for a little while now with performances in films like 2 Guns (2013) and The Equaliser (2014) which undoubtedly did his bank balance a lot of good without stretching him overmuch. It’s about time he became an actor again and in Fences he delivers the goods.

August Wilson’s drama is a piece Washington knows well. He and his co-star Viola Davis played these roles in an award-winning 2010 revival of the play. In fact, Washington has all five adult leads from that production reprise their roles in the film version. For me it pays dividends; their familiarity with the roles allows Washington, who also directs, to shoot in long takes giving the actors the luxury of the sort of long performative speeches which are normally missing from film.

In Fences Washington is Troy Maxson, a Pittsburgh garbage man whose dreams are bigger than his life. He had a promising future as a baseball player but this is the 1950s and the post-Robinson diversity of the sport came too late for him. Troy takes out his frustrations in rambling declamations in the back yard in which most of the piece is set. Davis as his wife Rose and Jovan Adepo as his son Cory bear the brunt of his thwarted ambition.

Troy’s frustration is compounded by the fact that they live a relatively comfortable life, but not because of his efforts. Their house has been bought through government compensation for war trauma suffered by his brother Gabriel – a shamefully overlooked performance by Mykelti Williamson.

All things considered Troy is not a nice man and Washington never tries to make him nice. There are no nods to the audience to say ‘Look, it’s me, Denzel’. He is unrepentant and unredeemable and Washington plays him that way. Similarly, Davis gets to play Rose as her own woman, there is no long-suffering wifely caricature here.

The original play all takes place in the backyard with Troy’s symbolic fence as a prominent reminder of his incomplete life. Although Wilson also wrote the screenplay it never quite opens out as it should, and there are times when it seems a little like filmed theatre. There is one moment where Troy is taken out of his element – a scene in which he faces a disciplinary hearing – and it sheds an entirely new light on his character. Just once, he looks vulnerable and unsure and I would have liked to have seen a little more of this aspect of his persona.

As a film, Fences is a little less than the sum of its performances but those performances are worth the price of a ticket on their own.