Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (Lions Gate)
Rated R for child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive language.
Starring Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd, Lenny Kravitz, Stephanie Andujar, Chyna Layne, Amina Robinson, Xosha Roquemore, Angelic Zambrana, Aunt Dot, Nealla Gordon, Grace Hightower, Barret Helms, Kimberly Russell, Bill Sage.
Written by Geoffrey Fletcher and Sapphire (novel).
Directed by Lee Daniels.
GRADE: A-
REVIEWEvery once in a while, and independent film comes along that reaches far into society's dustbin of of forgotten culture to create cinema designed to provoke thought, discussion and intense debate.
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is one of those films, tackling some serious subject matter and providing a venue for great performances.
It's the (fictional) story of Charise Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), an illiterate teen age girl living in Harlem who is brutally abused by her mother (Mo'Nique) and repeatedly raped by her father. She has already given birth to a girl born with Down's Syndrome who is cared for by her grandmother, when she becomes pregnant with her second child as she attends junior high school. Precious' father is the father of both children.
Whenever Precious goes through any kind of traumatic experience like beatings and verbal abuse from her mother, rape by her father or encounters with bullies on the street, she escapes to her imagination, where she is a pop star, a movie star, or the center of attention on the red carpet. She is usually jolted back into reality by outside physical forces, like a blow to the head or a dog licking her forehead after a street thug knocks her to the ground.
When her junior high principal find out the Precious is pregnant, she recommends an alternative school, which the girl reluctantly attends. Her english teacher is Miss Rain (Paula Patton), who works with a group of girls with varying learning problems.
Even though Precious enjoys school, primarily as an escape from her monster-mother, she continues to struggle with her studies until Miss Rain breaks through and the troubled girl opens up. In the meantime, Precious begins seeing her own social worker (much to the displeasure of her mother, since losing Precious as a dependent will result in a lack of funds) named Mrs. Weiss (Mariah Carey) who tries to help the girl get out of her situation.
When Precious delivers her baby, she spends a few days in the hospital and returns home, where her mother tries to beat her, while abusing the small infant. Precious turns on her mother and leaves with her baby to the alternative school, where Miss Rain and school secretary "Cornrows" (
The View's Sherrie Swensen) try to find a new home for her.
Miss Rain eventually persuades her lesbian partner to take Precious into their home until she can get government housing of her own.
(SPOILER ALERT)
Precious begins to excel at school and things are looking up until her mother shows up to deliver some bad news: Precious' father has died from AIDS. Precious soon discovers she is HIV positive (her children are not) and attends an incest intervention session attended by her mother and Mrs. Weiss that produces even more startling revelations about the family's sexual abuse.
Precious must decide if she will have any kind of relationship with her mother or strike out on her own with her two small children.
As a film,
Precious is a little messy, notwithstanding its shocking source material. I wasn't sure whether I should be laughing at Precious' gaudy, campy dream sequences before getting yanked back into the gritty reality of her abuse. It's perhaps a little too much "art house" for the masses.
Messiness aside,
Precious is full of some of the most powerful performances I've ever seen. At times, it seems newcomer Sidibe is merely reciting lines (with a heavy ebonic dialect that is at times difficult to understand), but there are moments during her performance that are powerful enough to bring anyone to tears. One particular scene comes after Precious discovers she is HIV positive. It's gut-wrenching sad.
Other performances ought to provide plenty of Oscar fodder as well. The alluring Paula Patton is particularly outstanding as Miss Rain, and Mariah Carey makes great strides in erasing her
Glitter debacle, but the greatest performance of all comes from comedian Mo'Nique as Precious' abusive mother. It is a portrayal that is both disturbing and sympathetic, and Mo'Nique ought to be at the top of every casting director's list for a while. Mo'Nique holds nothing back as she frighteningly displays the darkest and worst side of humanity.
Precious does have a lot to say about the worth of a human soul and the strength of the human spirit against all odds. There are also socially relevant concepts at play in the movie, mostly concerning the failure and limited success of the inner-city welfare state and ethical choices involving pregnancy from incest.
It's pretty heavy stuff, so I wouldn't recommend
Precious for everyone. It's R rating is perhaps too light because of the extreme language, but the portrayed abuse is perhaps more than any real victim can bear. It may only be a movie, but for those who have lived through such brutality at the hands of their closest relatives,
Precious is a true gut-punch. Even so, the movie provides a powerful venue to bring attention to some of the worst of society's often ignored problems.
