The more I ponder “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” the tough yet continually electrifying new film directed by Lee Daniels, the more I’m unsure of what to adequately say about it. Is it really meant to be just a piece of entertainment? Or is it more a strong social commentary? Or is it merely a well-structured character study? It is in this questioning, this inquiry into the complexity and nuance, that the raw and glittering facets to this diamond of a film can truly be found.
As the title says, “Precious” centers on the title character, Clarice “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), a morbidly obese, illiterate, 16-year-old black girl, who lives in a rundown, Harlem apartment with her physically and emotionally abusive mother Mary (comedienne Mo’Nique).
After her high school teacher finds out she’s pregnant for the second time by her absent and drug-addicted father, the principal kicks her out of high school. But instead of leaving her destitute without an education, the principal suggests Precious go to a program for troubled teens looking to get their GED because her math teacher says she has an aptitude for math.
Mary thinks that school won’t do her daughter any good, and thinks going down to the welfare office to qualify for assistance is a better idea than bothering with school. Defiantly, Precious decides to go to school instead, despite her mother’s fuming rage. But it’s ultimately in this class, under the tutelage of Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) that Precious really begins to awaken and become a real person.
This normally would be the point in the oft-mocked Lifetime movie where the young protagonist would learn to overcome her adversity and become her high school’s valedictorian or something equally ridiculous. But screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher by strictly sticking to Sapphire’s novel and with director Daniels’s assured direction, “Precious” transcends any kind of cliché. These characters are fully-realized people full of flaws and all haunted with demons of the past and their uncertain futures.
Both Precious and her mother Mary are locked into relationships that feed off of each other’s worst qualities. Mary treats her daughter as her whipping boy, yet Precious sticks around, allowing her mother to still treat her horribly. The violence that happens between mother and daughter is so casually treated it seems an expected way of life by both victim and abuser.
Mo’Nique, in her first dramatic role, is a fiery tornado as Mary. She’s equal parts malevolent and pitiful, desperate yet vindictive. But just when you thought that her performance would only hit the bitter and evil side, she throws in moments of sheer crestfallen grace. She’s a broken woman struggling under generations of what she’s told it means to be a woman, and ruined by the lack of love she’s never received.
Similarly to Mo’Nique’s performance is the startling work of Gabourey Sidibe.
To be plucked from obscurity and in her first major film role to have the instincts and raw talent that is this 24-year-old has, is something beyond extraordinary. She plays Precious as a subtle storm of emotions, uncertainties, and sadness wrapped up in the blank stare of someone slowly being destroyed by their circumstances. She’s so convincing, you wouldn’t believe that it’s the same effervescent and excitable girl who’s been doing the interview circuit to support the film.
The supporting cast is also quite strong with Mariah Carey, yes I said, Mariah Carey, in a sturdy and sympathetic role as a welfare worker trying to help Precious through her turmoil.
To say this film is a must-see is the understatement of the year. Films like this don’t come along very often. Let me rephrase: experiences like this don’t come along often enough. You don’t just watch “Precious”; you take it in as if to witness something for the very first time.
Grade: A
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