Precious (2009)

Anyone who watches PRECIOUS and thinks that they've seen these kinds of stories before is a person who is taking a film at face value. Have there been films about emotionally, physically and even sexually abusive families who live in poverty with seemingly no realistic means of rising out of the mud? Of course. But I'd be hard-pressed to remember one that so deeply communicates every aspect of such an existence as this film. PRECIOUS is just that. For anyone who can relate to even bits and pieces of the story, it's a cathartic American masterpiece. And for those who have never experienced anything like what these characters do or haven't known someone who has, it is as good of a lesson as any I can think of.

Where I grew up, there were girls like Claireece Precious Jones all over the place. I did not personally know of any girls who were 16 year-old mothers to babies at the hands of their fathers, but I certainly knew some kids who had it bad and did not have parents who made them feel like it would ever get any better.

Gabourey Sidibe is Oscar-ready as Precious. She has shut down to cope. When things get bad --which is daily -- she escapes to fantasies she holds of herself as famous and desired. Director Lee Daniels, who could have easily made a TV movie-of-the-week from this material, masterfully cuts us away from Precious' most horrific moments of violence and abruptly throws us into these fantasies in her head. They are barely moments of lightness. We wonder during each of these segments what horror was too graphic to even be seen on screen and meet Precious on the other side of her out-of-body experiences to witness the damage that has been done. We are simply more deeply reminded that Precious has nothing but these fantasies.

Much of the damage, both past and present, is at the hands of her mother, Mary. Played with fantastic fire and pathetic ignorance by Mo'Nique, Mary is so f-ed up that she hates her daughter for stealing her man instead of protecting her daughter as a victim of incestuous rape. Until the final scenes of the movie, in fact, it is hard to find a single thing to feel sympathy for in Mary. Once again, Daniels is wise to bring us to the brink of disgust with this woman who so spitefully plays the welfare system and turns a blind eye to unthinkable domestic horrors. But then, before it's over, Daniels and Mo'Nique carefully massage some empathy out of this monstrous mother.

This is why PRECIOUS works so well. Viewers probably assume that there has to be some light at the end of the tunnel, some hope. And when we're introduced to Ms. Rain, a light-skinned woman who teaches Precious at an alternative school, we worry that the film will go the route of "Freedom Writers" or countless other films of its kind. It does not.

Ms. Rain does share qualities with other on-screen teachers of misguided, inner-city youth, but she is not a self-sacrificing ninny. Paula Patton, who plays Ms. Rain, does a great job with the most thanklessly un-flashy of the film's main characters.

And then there's Mariah Carey as Precious' social worker. I am not sure I'd go as far as some of those who have raved about her work as Oscar-worthy, but she is excellent. Maybe it's to her credit that Daniels really doesn't give her character any dramatically huge moments in the film. She is firm and dowdy and totally un-Mariah-like. But I'd hate to award her just for doing a good job at vacating a famous public persona. That doesn't seem fair, and it's a strategy that Oscar-campaigners will also apply to Mo'Nique and Sidibe, both of whom are funny and warm in reality.

Still, Carey is more than effective in her role. I heard that Daniels turned down money from Carey to co-produce the film so that he could force her to do as he said. If he took her money, I heard, he feared that Carey could control aspects of her performance, such as her appearance. If this story is true, than Daniels is truly one of the best directors of the year for his work with actors, not just for his ability to make something cinematic out of something that people could have said they've seen before.

I suspect that PRECIOUS will be even more devastating to those who haven't read Sapphire's novel, "Push." But I have read the novel, and this film -- for as graphic and horrible as it is -- is hardly the half of it. The film is faithful to the novel that is short in page numbers but hard to read quickly due to its unspeakable horrors. And the film, I think, leaves one with a bit more hope, which is the right thing to do. If you haven't read "Push," you should.

For all that has said about PRECIOUS, my upbringing as a welfare kid who lived in a lower-income neighborhood and attended a mostly-black high school allowed me to be affected on many more levels. The film is not just about having a bad family life, though it is certainly about this. It's about fundamentally, to your core, wanting to be everything that you are not. It's about standing at the bottom of the well and looking up at the circle of light at the top where the bucket hangs, but there is no rope descending that you can hold onto. It's about setting goals that are sadly low-balled to those of us who have, but barely even realistic to those who have not.

PRECIOUS is a revelation.

4.0 out of 4