Lionsgate| USA | 110 mins
Precious is a very powerful and very disturbing film. It makes the audience truly appreciate the main necessities of life (food, clothing, education, clean living, and money) and how hard they can be to come by. Director Lee Daniels looks beyond those, showing the audience that a strong family unit will make or break a person both mentally and physically.
The film follows the journey of Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), an overweight illiterate teenager that is pregnant with her second child. When the pregnancy is discovered she is kicked out of her high school and sent to an “alternative” learning center where she can get her GED. Precious’s home life is broken; her mother (Mo’Nique) is abusive and her father nonexistent. The way the scenes inside the home are framed and edited makes the audience feel nothing but sorrow for Precious and her trapped situation. The only time the audience gets to see the powerful side of Precious is when she is at the alternative learning center. There we see her thrive and achieve things no one thinks she is a capable of. The film is a coming of age story while learning to take responsibility and control of your own life.
There are moments that make the audience turn their heads in fear and disgust. Not only because of what is actually on screen but also because of the subject matter that the moment revolves around. The abuse that Precious suffers evokes a similar reaction at times. It is extremely disturbing to watch the way her mother treats her and feel completely helpless to do anything about. The film succeeds very well in making you forget that you are watching a movie. The big reveal in the film, which is very subtle in its approach, is extremely heart wrenching and causes a sickly reaction in the audience to its truth.
The acting in Precious is all above par. Sidibe accomplishes what she sets out to do, make the audience feel remorse for this character. Precious’s teacher in the learning center played by Paula Patton is perhaps the weakest character but being the weakest character in Precious is not saying much. Even she is above par and evokes true emotion from the audience. But as great as those characters are, the unsung hero (or villain in this case) is Precious’s mother played by Mo’Nique. She causes a stir of hatred in the audience and a very powerful one at that. You feel no remorse for her situation and by the end of the film the audience is truly disgusted by her. Even the supporting characters are amazing. Take the characters in the alternative class with Precious for example, every one of them represent a different piece of inner city culture yet they are all united by one thing — they want to better their lives and make something of themselves. They all have dreams just like Precious and they all have a minor side story that allows them to arc on their own merit in some way.
Occasionally when something bad is happening to her, Precious retreats into her own head and we see what she is imagining. She has dreams and sometimes will wish to be a completely different person. This helps to add to her struggle and allow the audience to see how awful she really feels.
The only real problem with Precious are the music choices. A film like this doesn’t play by the rules and it shows. There is nothing “safe” about this movie except for the music. If it’s a sappy scene a sappy song is played. If it’s a dramatic scene then a dramatic song is played. It doesn’t work with the rest of the film. I would have preferred some originality in the score and not one that is so ordinary.
Precious is an amazing film and one that will stand the test of time. It’s very message driven and is the type of film that was missing in this year’s repertoire. I also would like to warn the readers that this film is a very hard watch. Not in the way Antichrist is hard to watch, but more in the Blue Velvet way. See it, but unless the film touches you on extremely deep level you don’t need to see it again — at least not in theaters.
9 out of 10