I'm not really sure why the creators of 2009 Oscar nominee Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire decided to give so much emphasis to the source material. The title would be much more effective, I think, if it had been shortened just to Precious. I'm not going to keep typing the full title over and over in this posting. Instead, I'll focus on the shortened version by which the film and its title character are better known. It's a remarkably ironic choice of name for her, a young girl saddled with more problems and issues than any movie protagonist in recent history. It's a name that suggests something rare and beautiful, something treasured. Clareece "Precious" Jones feels anything but loved or cherished, however, and that's what makes viewers empathetic to her plight.
Precious (played by newcomer Gabourey Sibide) has what seems like some pretty insurmountable odds stacked against her. She's 16 years old and almost illiterate. She's unlikely to learn how to read and write in her school, given how disruptive the environment is. She's pregnant with her second child, and the father of them both is her own father, who has been raping her for years. Her first child, cared for by her grandmother, has Down's syndrome. Precious is also cursed with the most monstrous of mothers ever committed to film, Mary, played with ferocity by Mo'Nique. You'd expect a movie about a character with all of those problems to be a downer, and Precious (the movie) pulls very few punches in depicting just how bad life is for this young woman.
It's only "cheat," really, is in the way that it depicts the physical violence to which Precious is subjected by her mother. Each time we see Mary mounting the stairs to her daughter's room, the screen fades to black before a new scene starts. I'm not suggesting that it would make a better movie if the film showed us just how horrific Mary's actions are; the suggestion of them is enough here. Besides, when your mother hurls as many insults as Mary does, you understand the toughness of the environment out of which Precious has to endure.
What saves her, at least at first, is her imagination. The film frequently interrupts some of the more painful disclosures by showing us what's going on inside Precious's mind. She dreams about being a star and walking the red carpet at the premiere of her movie. She imagines herself the focus of a music video. She even thinks of herself as a part of a gospel choir. In most of these moments, she's joined by her image of her ideal partner, a light-skinned black boy who seems to love only her, who wants to take her away from the desperate life she's living. Interesting, in one of her fantasies, the one where she sees an alternative version of herself in the mirror, she's a white girl with blond hair, quite a contrast from her own dark skin and black hair. The movie raises some issues about whiteness and its privileged position in society, but it doesn't address them fully.
Of course, it isn't just her imagination that saves Precious. She needs the help of others. Thanks to the intervention of her high school principal, Precious is sent to an alternative school where she meets her new teacher, Blu Rain (Paula Patton). Ms. Rain is the kind of teacher one only sees in the movies. She's completely dedicated to the students in her class and never seems to have a bad day. She's all good, a model teacher in ways that real teachers could never be. She even manages to have a fulfilling home life with her partner, so she has apparently learned how to achieve the perfect balance in life. Yes, she's a lesbian, and the revelation of that makes Precious rethink her own ideas, passed down from her mother, about gay people. When you have a teacher as giving and generous as Ms. Rain, you have to be just as open-hearted as she is.
I found the scenes in the classroom itself to be among the most interesting in the film. Each of the girls is there for a different reason, and they have differing abilities to express themselves. I particularly enjoyed watching the performance of Xosha Roquemore as Joann; she's hysterically funny. What occurs over time, slowly, is a bonding among these girls. They all seem to understand what the others are going through, and they become a pretty powerful support system for each other. The best example is when Precious is in the hospital to have her baby. The other girls visit her and bring her pictures and take her journals back to Ms. Rain. You'd expect far more tension between this group of people from disparate backgrounds, but Precious needs a "safe place" where she can express herself, and that's what the classroom provides for her.
The film's greatest strength is in the performances of its two leads, Sibide and Mo'Nique. Sibide has to convey a great range of emotion. She has to grow and evolve over the course of the narrative. She has to have ups and downs, good days and bad days. It's quite a remarkable performance. There are scenes where she unleashes the rage that Precious has been building inside of her, and they are shocking to watch. Then she has to show just how hurt she has been by Mary's constant barrage of negativity. Precious cowers in the kitchen, making dinner for her mother, never knowing when the next act of violence might occur. Sibide also gets to display some remarkable acts of tenderness with Precious's baby Abdul. It's quite a performance for someone who had never acted in a film before this one.
The real revelation, though, is the performance of Mo'Nique. Best known for her years as a stand-up comedian, Mo'Nique here is capable of portraying the essence of darkness. As a woman embittered by her husband's leaving her bed for their daughter instead, she spends a great deal of her time on screen revealing her hatred for Precious through her eyes. She also takes the simple props of a chair and TV tray and television set and uses them more effectively than most actresses could use an entire bag of tricks. And the way she smokes her cigarettes is like the unleashing of an inner poison. I don't think anyone who's seen this film can forget Mo'Nique's performance, especially after the revelations of her last moments on camera.
There are two other performances that are surprising too. Mariah Carey, best known to moviegoers for her infamous Glitter, plays Mrs. Weiss, a social worker who gradually starts to piece together what has been happening to Precious. She's almost unrecognizable at first, so plain has she made herself. I think that once the shock dissipates, though, you find her quite believable. The other supporting cast member who caught me off guard was Sherri Shepherd, perhaps most famous for being one of the hosts of The View. After I saw this film the first time, I read that Shepherd was in the film, but I couldn't remember seeing her. It was only after I discovered that she plays Cornrows, the receptionist at the alternative school, that I realized how much she, too, had de-glamorized herself to play the role.
I'd like to talk just a little bit about the ending without necessarily spoiling it for anyone who hasn't yet seen this amazing little film. There are more revelations about Precious's life than the ones I've mentioned above, and let's just say that knowing that the film is set in 1987 means that the future does not bode well for Precious. Some have suggested that the ending is an attempt to leave on an upbeat note, but I'm not sure that's what the film's creators have in mind. Too many bad things have happened to Precious, and while she may have made some changes in her life, the odds against her achieving all of the dreams she describes one day to her classmates and teacher seem overwhelming. I think the ending is ambiguous about what lies ahead, but I suppose some viewers need a bit of optimism after watching a couple of hours of such downbeat material.
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