Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (Daniels, 2009)

[ayaa1977]

Synopsis for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire: Precious is a 350 pounds illiterate black girl, Gabourey Sidibe, lives in 1987 Harlem with her abusive mother, Mo'Nique, and she is pregnant with her second child from her father who rapes constantly. She gets a chance to enroll in an alternative school which might be just what she needs to turn her life around.

Despite featuring some cruel and very hard to watch scenes, a very bleak world, and perhaps the most notoriously bad mother ever put on screen, Precious is a very hopeful film in its core. Precious is a girl who suffered so much and no child should endures even one tenth that amount suffering, but even after all that she is not resentful or damaged, she just wants to be happy. Happiness is fulfilled by things that we might think as trivial

" My name is Clareece Precious Jones. I wish I had a light-skinned boyfriend with real nice hair. And I want to be on a cover of a magazine. But first I want to be in one of those BET videos"

She looks in the mirror and she sees a blonde skinny girl, that is her fantasy. But she is genuinely a good person, she loves her child even though she is handicapped, and she dream of the day she can be with her again. All these emotions is captured by the new-comer Gabourey Sidibe who is just amazing in the role. Lee Daniel the director goes for some really cheap tricks to manipulate the audience, in one scene the mother Mary is verbally abusing Precious then she through something at her, he puts Precious at the top of the staircase and Marry at the bottom, as if we need this forced image to know who is on a higher ground. Marry is ugly disgusting, we see her "tidy up" but she looks really sweaty and dirty with two bushes under her arms. Those kind of stunts are what we get from Mr. Daniel's direction, but if there is something that he gets really well is the performances he gets from his actors, in particular Sidibe and Mo'Nique who is a force of nature in her. Even Mariah Carey in a small role transforms totally. In the same time, all the positive role-models in the film are played by light-skinned Black people (Mariah Carey, Paula Patton, and Lenny Kravitz) which perhaps is an odd choice that defeats the purpose.

The film's narrative concludes pretty early, and the second half of the film goes on an on aimlessly after precious joins the new school. She bonds with her teacher and classmate but nothing really happen afterward. We get the big confrontational scene where Mary makes her big speech and Precious decides whether to let her mother back to her life, a new bad thing is revealed to her but she keeps her chin up and the film ends up on a positive note. It is a good film but it is not what I would call one of the Best of the year. But it fills a needed slot in the Academy list so everyone who'd watch the ceremony next March will find something he or she likes, it is a rating scheme and the sad think that is probably will work for them.

As I said it is a good film and it gets from me a generous 3.5/5. 

[fizz]

Precious isn’t subtle. In telling the story of a black, extremely obese, underprivileged, teenage single mother with a down’s syndrome inflicted child who is abused (physically, emotionally, verbally) by both her parents and finds herself the victim of incest, the film has time to give us one last shocking reveal by the end, that Clareece ‘Precious’ Jones suffers from AIDS as well. Is there any predicament that doesn’t befall her?

The first signs of trouble in the film are the glaringly obvious, gimmicky, pseudo documentary camera work, which zooms in an out of characters faces while they stare blankly at the screen during key scenes. Director Lee Daniels (producer of similarly morose but better made films Monsters Ball and Woodsmen, benefitting by not being directed by him) uses every known indie film cliché including using semi-intelligent voice over narration to emphasize Clareece’s fragmented thoughts. This approach, where the narrative is peppered with fantasy moments of Clareece imagining herself as a diva, singer, actress etc is based on the celebrated book (which employed stream of consciousness), but it is important to differentiate the film from its source material. This story, a work of fiction ‘inspired’ by author Sapphire’s experiences dealing with such women when she was teaching, masquerades as fact when it is clearly not. By amalgamating every known predicament that can inflict itself on the poor and downtrodden, it creates an artificial archetype of the destitute that is rarely convincing.

The storytelling approach is heavy handed, often using extreme exaggerations where none are required. When Clareece returns from the hospital with her second child, her wildly abusive mother (Monique, aiming for nothing more than shock and awe with her excessive use of profanity) throws her baby on a cushion and attacks her daughter. The scuffle ends when the two hulking women pushing each other around the house and throwing things at each other, including a television set. Many in the audience gasped. Others laughed. I was among the latter because I could not help but be amused by the shamelessly embellished attempt at inciting audience sympathy for someone who had already been portrayed as so lowly a human being.

Precious has little going for it, save for its honest performances. Of these, Mo’Nique’s big mama with a filthy mouth has already gotten the lion’s share of its overwrought publicity, but newcomer Gabourey Sidibe as the titular character, Mariah Carey as a sympathetic social worker and especially Paula Patton as lesbian patron saint/teacher/savior turn in effective turns. But good performances can’t save this film, which gives blaxploitation a whole new meaning. Watching it is like sitting through a feature film length episode of Jerry Springer's trash TV show.

Rating: 2/5

[ak]

If this wasn't the year of Avatar, I'd say this would have been a shoo-in for Best Picture and Best Director. My school's dean heralded it "a masterpiece" and Lee Daniels as "the next big thing." But I question his objectivity because he's a faggot and into blacks.

[animatedude]

hey! what's wrong with blacks? blacks have big ones!

[ayaa1977]

I did think that Lee Daniel's direction was manipulative and as you said he employed a great amount of overkill. Did you notice how Precious in the beginning always fantasize herself as a skinny blonde when she looks in the mirror but at the end she sees her true self. These stuff may be came from the book but that does not mean he had to put it on screen. I would give him credit though for his casting and directing the actors. I listened to an interview with the lead Gabourey Sidibe and I could not believe she is the same person. She sounded, for the lack of a better word, as a white girl, and it is hard to believe this first time actress can pull off such a great and understated performance, it is the opposite to Mo'Nique ferocious and large depiction of Mary the mother. I would tip my hat to miss Sidibe and although she is not winning offer Sandra Bullock, to me she is the most deserving of that statue.    

[ak]

hey! what's wrong with blacks? blacks have big ones!

That is a mostly true generalization.

[fizz]

I did not find anything great about Gabourey Sidibe's performance. I thought she carried herself well but generally mumbled through her lines, acted tough or insecure, as the sequence demanded and basically just sat around looking lost. The ending is such a farce, there is no closure, just a cheap confession where the monster self analyzes herself and we, the audience, are supposed to be in some stunned state. The film used really cheap manipulation to gain sympathy. Really, nothing subtle about this film and if it wasn't for Oprah Fuckfrey and Tyler Pershit pimping this film as the embodiment of black female liberation in post Obama America, it would never have made it past cable TV.

[ak]

...if it wasn't for Oprah Fuckfrey and Tyler Pershit...

 

[ayaa1977]

I did not find anything great about Gabourey Sidibe's performance. I thought she carried herself well but generally mumbled through her lines, acted tough or insecure, as the sequence demanded and basically just sat around looking lost. The ending is such a farce, there is no closure, just a cheap confession where the monster self analyzes herself and we, the audience, are supposed to be in some stunned state. The film used really cheap manipulation to gain sympathy. Really, nothing subtle about this film and if it wasn't for Oprah Fuckfrey and Tyler Pershit pimping this film as the embodiment of black female liberation in post Obama America, it would never have made it past cable TV.

I would agree with you on all accounts except for Gabourey Sidibe's performance, which I thought was great, and let's leave it at that.

[animatedude]

was this censored?