Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

Lee Daniels, USA, 2009, 110 minutes

If you have heard anything about this film, you may have heard that it’s depressing. How could a film about an obese sixteen year old African-American girl living in the ghetto of Harlem, impregnated twice by her father, illiterate and mentally and physically abused by her mother, be anything but? It is perhaps natural to have trepidations about committing time and money to material like this, but many people have left the cinema after “Precious” feeling oddly optimistic. Featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Mo’Nique as Precious’ mother and an Oscar-winning screenplay by Geoffrey S. Fletcher, Precious is a film that defies expectations at every turn.

Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe, in one of the finest debut performances of all time), is sixteen years old, weighs over 400 pounds, is illiterate, and has just become pregnant for the second time by her father. When she is taken out of public school in favor of an alternative school to change the direction of her life, Precious finds a new source of inspiration. Whereas she could only escape the horrors of her life through imagery and fantasy, she finds at her new school an acceptance she has never known before. Although her life is taking a turn for the better, she must always return to the same apartment where her mother (Mo’Nique) constantly abuses her, the reason for which is revealed late in the film in one of the most incredibly acted scenes in recent memory. After Precious gives birth to her second child, a fight with her mother spurs her to leave the apartment and enter a halfway house while Precious finishes her studies. She occasionally meets with a social worker (Mariah Carey) who uncovers incest in the household.

At points, this is an extremely difficult film to watch, but Precious is a captivating piece of cinema and those willing to look past its synopsis and engage the material for themselves might just find the film to be one of the most uplifting films in recent memory, largely as a result of the pleasure found in watching the incredible displays of acting talent.

Review by Derek Leafgreen
Written for EUFS Programme 2010-11