"Precious" is a hard film to watch. The amount of misery and unrelenting pain that this film presents is almost beyond comprehension. Poverty, illiteracy, rape, incest, HIV, physical and verbal and emotional abuse...how could anyone cope with all that? How does the human spirit survive after being battered by all that? It's hard to fathom.
Like of lot of stories of this type before it, "Precious" explores familiar ground and expected consequences. What differentiates this one is the expert handling of the characters and plot narrative - it never becomes burdensome or overbearing.
Directed by Lee Daniels and written for the screen by Geoffrey Fletcher "Precious" is based on first-time novelist Sapphire's book "Push." Sapphire, according to background material, was a literacy teacher in Harlem and the Bronx for seven years. The character of Precious is a composite based on the women that Sapphire worked with for those years.
The movie version of Precious lives with her abusive mother. She is pregnant with her second child by her absent father. Her first child suffers from Downs Syndrome, a child also conceived by her missing father. Precious' life is a serious of mentally and physically abusive moments from school mates, neighborhood bullies and her mother. What is implied but never really stated is that Precious is abused primarily by a system that allows all this to happen without much in the way of regard or remedies.
And yet, for all the agony the movie presents there is a strong undercurrent of redemption and hope - especially when Precious enters a special school and is helped by a lovely teacher (Paula Patton) to learn and to explore her inner self. This is her true journey and the story of the film - we can help and redeem each other if we just listen and care.
First time actress Gabourey Sidibe has the lead role of Precious and she is really quite amazing. Her angry and confused mother is played by comedian Mo'Nique who is about as pitch perfect as an actress can get. You get the feeling that everyone here is channeling an experience that, if they didn't live it, they understand all too tragically well. I'm not sure this is necessarily just an African-American story but it is certainly a story about how poverty and the relentless drone of generational ignorance about life options can infect and carry through from parent to child.
I can't find much to fault in this story or its presentation. The use of background
narrative throughout from the Precious character ties together a spare and understated script. There are moments of violence and explosive emotion but the story is told so matter-of-factly that the horror of what is unfolding becomes even more overwhelming. A tribute to the light hand of both writer and director.
The ending, which is a bit predictable and simplisitic but perhaps necessarily so, could have been so much bigger, drama-wise. Lee dials it down, dials it back to a point where you just feel like you've been holding your breath a bit longer than you should. You exhale and everything is released. But not like you were choking for air - just like you missed a few breaths. It's a marvel to think that Lee avoided what would have been a natural moment for the actors to chew the scenery and instead just guided them into a soft splashdown.
The film was set in 1987. I didn't quite understand why since nothing I could see is specific to that time period and you never really got the sense that we were actually in a different era - except that no one had cell phones or iPods.
Bravo also to the actresses in this film who dulled themselves down to play these roles. Mariah Carey goes ultra-plain to play one of Precious' counselors. They sweat, have armpit hair, walk around in dirty shifts, and never try to look even one bit glam. It reminded me of how courageous actress Shirley MacLaine was in "Postcards From The Edge" when she was in the hospital.
See "Precious." Perhaps it's not a big screen film experience but it is a powerful and sobering one. It makes you ache for a way to actually help people to escape this cycle of violence and ignorance so artfully and powerfully portrayed here.
People say to me all the time that they don't make films like they used - yes, in fact they do.
