★★★
Heritage Cinema is too easy to sniff at. Likewise, populist historicals are too often the recipient of critical derision. Indeed, much of my own criticism for Theodore Melfi’s recent Hidden Figures was perhaps even guilty of this. Broad strokes in cinema can grant a complex issue vital accessibility, a fact that should absolutely be celebrated. That said, it’s a fine balance and I maintain – for now anyway – that Hidden Figures takes simplification just too far in its crowd pleasing to fully enable a more than surface-level depth.
The Film Blog 