This is good to hear. I too thought the trailers leaned on hokey tropes, but if you, a woman of color, actually praised it this highly that changes my mind. I can't wait to see this, Moonlight, and I Am Not Your Negro. Some great black cinema hitting our theaters lately for a change!!!

I watched this movie last night. I agree with 100% of everything you said here. As a black software engineer, the first thing I did today was basically tell my other black and brown male and female colleagues who are also engineers to go see this movie and to take their children to see it. I told one of my colleagues to buy this the blu-ray to show her baby daughter multiple times when she's older.
(spoiler coming up)

My mom's a RN, who went to university in Long Island in the late 60s for her bachelors in nursing. When Octavia Spencer's character checked out a book on Fortran from the library, it reminded me of what my mother told me about how she had to learn Fortran for one quarter as part of a requirement for all science majors at the time in the turn of the decade. This was in the late 60s/early 70s. When I got my first real desktop machine in 1990, she was sitting there next to me learning DOS and the rudimentary apps (word perfect, lotus, and print shop pro). Today when we argue about things, it's usually how much computer crap, old iOS and Android devices that she has in the house.

long story short, watch this movie. I cheered, laughed, felt excited,felt inspired, and started to ball-up at the end. You also see a side of John Glenn's story that we never knew. He put his faith and trust into these women and wanted these black female mathematicians to succeed and they did. I think that's not a tall-tale but an actual piece of history that was never told.

Honestly, I can see this movie truly pissing off racists, such as politicians, teachers and administrators.

It's still very early but it's not going to be easy topping this overwrought lede. Let your womb enjoy her retirement.

This movie is so good. Took my folks to see both it and Fences this weekend. It's such a relief to watch a movie about people who look like me actually excelling. Going to try to catch it again before it leaves the theatres.

I'm so there this week.

My father worked in the space program back then, and I'll be visiting him in the nursing home, so my guess is he'll know some of the back story.

This also reminds me of a time in the 80s when he wanted to go see a movie at a multiplex, and there was nothing at either of two I could be bothered with.

I pointed at the marquees and noted that each title starred and was about, "White man, white man, white man, white man...oh he has a girl friend, but she's killed off in the first 10 minutes, so he has an excuse to go after the bad guys."

As a middle ages white man, I doubt dad had ever given thought to how damn white and male centric Hollywood movies were, but he had no argument for his feminist daughter that day, and we did something else instead.

I loved this movie. Yes, it's maudlin and shmaltzy—a tear-jerker from beginning to end. And I cried and cried and cherished every tear. I know the movie compressed about fifteen years worth of loosely related incidents together in a two-year span to make the story more dramatic and cohesive. It doesn't matter. The facts delivered are just as factual and , occasionally, just as ugly. This is an important story. On the way home I texted both of my adult daughters (one in Iowa, one in California) and told them they have to see it. Incidentally, my daughters and my wife and I are all white. The theater where I saw Hidden Figures, on the outskirts of Austin, TX, held a mixed-race audience—mostly white, but about a third people of color. It didn't matter. Everyone I saw leaving had tear streaks down their cheeks.

Also, Pharell Williams' soundtrack is bound to be a popular item. I just wish he'd used more music from Janelle Monae. I only heard her voice in one song.