Precious is a story about hope and survival.
(Full title: Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire.) As Precious herself is an obese Harlem teenager, endlessly abused and pregnant for the second time with a child who is the product of incest, there's a lot of pain to get through before you get to the hope part.
Set in Harlem in the late 1980s, Precious is a rags-to-riches tale of the emotions -- and all of it brought to life by Gabourey Sidibe. The newcomer actor tells the story from her point of view; Precious lives with her abusive mother, is sexually assaulted by her abusive father and wanders around in a fog of poverty and hopelessness most days. What saves Precious is her imagination. From time to time, the movie takes a brief foray into fantasyland, wherein Precious imagines herself to be rich, famous, talented.
When it's discovered that Precious is pregnant again, she's removed from school. However, she gets the opportunity to attend an alternative school, and that's where her intelligence is recognized and rewarded. Precious and her half-dozen classmates are all functional illiterates; as their real education begins, there's a shot of all of them touring one of the dinosaur rooms at the Museum of Natural History, looking around as if they've just landed on the moon. It's a great moment.
What happens next is how Precious makes a life for herself, against all the odds.
Precious is a film that never pulls its punches. There is no spoonful of sugar, no pat ending and no deus ex machina. (Although Paula Patton does seem a bit too good to be true in the role of Precious' inspirational teacher.) What the movie has is a certain raw energy and some terrific performances, especially from Sidibe and from Mo'Nique, who plays her mother. Mo'Nique, whose work here will leave you sitting slack-jawed in the dark, is already regarded as a dead cert for an Oscar nomination.
Everyone in this movie does a good job; the cast includes Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz and Sherri Shepherd.
It has been interesting to watch the reactions to Precious, based on whether one sees the film as emotional, political or sociological. Above all, it's a good story, well told.
The fact that Oprah Winfrey got behind Precious and gave it her seal of approval lends the whole project a whiff of worrisome maudlin uplift, but fear not. This film doesn't shy away from showing the grim truth of Precious' world.
Maybe she's not the only one who needed an education.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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