Emotionally Raw Precious an Expertly Acted Drama
Clarieece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) isn’t having the time of her life. It’s 1987 and the 16-year-old ninth grade student may love math and get good marks but she’s also functionally illiterate, her school principal sending her to the alternative school Each One/Teach One in hopes they might be able to do something with the teenager.
Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique in Lionsgate Films' Precious
But this is the least of Precious’ problems. Her home life is a disaster, her mother Mary (Mo’Nique) a nasty piece of work who abuses her daughter both physically and mentally while forcing the child to wait on her hand and foot while she sits on her butt watching television. Even worse, Precious is pregnant for the second time via her own absent father, terrified there’s nothing she can do to give them a better life than the one she has had.
Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire is a powerful, emotionally-charged drama that packs a pretty mean wallop. Adapted for the screen by newcomer Geoffrey Fletcher and directed by Lee Daniels (Shadowboxer), this is a movie filled with performances of profound depth and weight, everyone involved working so close to perfection it’s hard to imagine any of them reaching this sort of plateau ever again.
It starts with Sidibe. In nearly every scene, the youngster is spellbinding as Precious. Not because of the rich melancholic sadness she so often exudes, but because of the fire constantly burning behind the young woman’s eyes. Precious’ life may be drowning in misery but that doesn’t mean she’s letting it get the best of her. Sidibe gives her character a winsome eagerness, a passionate desire for growth and change hinting at a thoughtful curiosity that could potentially change her life for the better.
Then there is Mo’Nique. I’ve always believed that “The Parkers” and the Phat Girlz star is a much better actor than people have ever given her credit for being and she definitely proves that here. Mary isn’t just a portrait of venomous evil, she’s a flawed, multifaceted and broken woman who has sadly taken the raw deal life has given her and passed that pain and fury onto her only daughter. This is a mournful, highly visceral performance that eats at the very soul, and if Mo’Nique isn’t the frontrunner for this year’s Best Supporting Actress Academy Award I can’t think of anyone else who might be.
But the universal magnificence of the ensemble doesn’t stop there. Mariah Carey may have made herself a human sight gag after Glitter but she more than redeems herself here, and in just a few quick scenes she makes her social worker character Ms. Weiss key component of this motion picture’s human machine. Even better is Paula Patton as Precious’ Each One/Teach One teacher Ms. Rain. Stuck with the film’s most cliché character she somehow transforms her into a three-dimensional marvel. This is a real flesh and blood woman obsessed with giving her students guidance and hope, some of her scenes with Sidibe so stirring they touched my soul and shattered my heart.
All that said, I am not going to sit atop the mountain and call Daniels’ effort perfection like so many of my peers have. It’s easy to get enraptured with the actors and forgive many of the filmmaker’s directorial missteps but for my part I just can’t do the same. There are so many flash pans, quick camera zooms and oddly placed jump cuts that the movie kept calling attention to itself, and there were far too many moments where I found myself being taken out of the dramatics of the scene by some technically off-putting trick.
Then there are Precious’ daydreams and flights of fancy. When things get their worst she sometimes retreats into her own fantasies, imagining a Technicolor fame and fortune that would take her far away from her travails. It isn’t so much that these moments do not work so much as there is far too many of them. I found myself feeling like Daniels was throwing them in more often then he needed to, diluting the emotional intensity of the final, most important one mainly because he didn’t know when to say when.
For me, it’s these sorts of issues that keeps Precious from resonating like it could have. Daniels kept reminding me I was only watching a movie, and every time I got drawn into the dramatics of the narrative to the point the line between fiction and reality blurred some clunky technical aspect would draw me right back out again. It’s a puzzling and somewhat disappointing problem, the most frustrating aspect being that the solutions required to fix these problems are so glaringly obvious.
If it sounds like I’m dismissing this movie because of these faults let me stress right now that is definitely not the case. Precious is very, very good and is superbly acted by its entire ensemble cast. It reeks of truth, hitting an emotional peak few other features this year have achieved let alone attempted. I just don’t think Daniels’ intimate epic is the masterwork so many have heralded it to be, but even with that said it is still one of 2009’s must-see melodramas and a film everyone involved with should be highly proud of.
Film Rating: êêê1/2 (out of 4)
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