Barrett’s Awards Season Review: Precious Will Depress Some and Inspire Others

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (B)

Like with Avatar and  Up In The Air, Matthew and I will be providing “Awards Season” reviews for the films that are nominated for Best Picture Golden Globes, as well as ones that will be in the Oscar hunt. Stay tuned for our first Podcast discussing the Golden Globe nominations next week. Now to the review at hand. Watching Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is like watching a horrific car accident in slow motion. You know what you are witnessing is traumatizing, but you cannot look away. You care about the people involved due to their heart-breaking life circumstances, but you can’t do anything about it and thus must painfully watch and hope for the best.

Precious is the story of an over-weight, illiterate, black teenage girl living in Harlem in 1987. She was raped by her biological father and bore his mentally-handicapped child who Precious refers to as “Mongo,” as in Mongloid. She is then impregnated AGAIN by her father and is suspended from school, forcing her to enroll in an alternative-learning program for troubled young girls. Precious lives with her evil and unrelenting mother Mary; played, surprisingly brilliantly, by foul-mouthed comedian Mo’Nique.

Mary detests Precious. She loathes her existence. Almost every interaction Precious has with her mother results in raging physical abuse or profanity-laced tirades with such heart-warming gems as, “I fucking hate you Precious! I should have aborted your fat, ugly ass!” Of all the challenging elements in Precious’ life (poverty, pregnancy, obesity) the hurtful and disgusting treatment she receives from her mother takes by far the most mental and emotional toll.

The only two things that Precious has to escape her harsh realities to find relief are her periodic fantasies and her teacher Ms. Rain. Throughout the film, when things are too horrifying for Precious to deal with, she mentally leaves the situation and visualizes herself as a movie star on the red carpet or a famous singer accepting an award. Precious’s fantasies are not any different than a privileged white girl living in the suburbs, except Precious needs these fantasies in order to mentally escape being raped and abused. Her teacher Ms. Rain, played by the unbelievably gorgeous Paula Patton,  is Precious’ only human, tangible form of escape. Ms. Rain believes in the potential of Precious and does everything she can to help her. Unfortunately, this part of the story is a recycled narrative that you’ve seen many times (*cough* Dangerous Minds *cough* Freedom Writers), where the troubled, minority teenagers who live in the ghetto, are inspired to turn their lives around by a teacher who truly cares. Yawn.

In this type of a gritty drama focused on realism, acting is what makes or breaks its impact and quality. The acting in Precious is phenomenal. Newcomer Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe gives an outstanding performance as Precious. Her desperation and vulnerability is truly heart-breaking, but her courage to make a good life for herself and her children is very inspiring, which is why she’s up for a Best Actress Golden Globe. As I alluded to earlier, Mo’Nique completely steals the show as the disgustingly evil mother. She is so frighteningly mean and evil that you are gritting your teeth wondering what horrible thing she is going to say or do next; which is also why SHE is nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe. And Mariah Carey makes a solid appearance as Precious’ social worker, giving up the make up and vanity of her pop star persona to play a respectable movie role. She really looks terrible in the film, but for the part, you gotta respect it.

This is a solid film overall. It’s subject matter is so disturbing and serious that it’s not a movie that I’ll probably ever watch again, which is what detracted from it’s overall grade. In other words, I respect this film as a film in all its form, but I didn’t really enjoy it that much. Make sense? Also, the film is executive produced by Oprah and includes some eye brow-raising plugs for Oprah’s show in very inappropriate circumstances. Oprah was of course on the air in 1987, and if you see the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

What Should You Do? It’s waaaay too depressing to spend $10 at the theater. Wait for the DVD.