We saw the trailer for this movie a few times before it actually arrived at the theatre as part of the Cinematheque series. Annette Bening plays a 50+ woman who is raising her teenaged son, Jamie, on her own. She enlists the help of two women to help her son become a better man. One of the women rents a room in her house; she also rents a room to an enlightened young man who has his own opinions about women.
The view of the women is seen quite differently between the mother, the young woman in her early twenties, and the teenager who is Jamie’s best friend.
The book starts during the Second World War when the NACA were hiring the brightest mathematicians (many of whom were African-American women) to help design superior aircraft. When the war ended the large corp of “coloured computers” worked to improve commercial flights. Once the space race began, NASA hired most of these women to support research into space travel. While describing the incredible skills of the many women involved in these two agencies, the book also goes into detail about what was happening elsewhere in the country – segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, and inequalities based on sex.
