Lee Daniels’s “Precious” is an unrelenting portrait of a 16-year-old girl trapped in a life that will most likely lead her nowhere. What can she ever hope to accomplish with such little support at her current school, a home life in which she is constantly abused, a child that she can’t care for….and another on the way?
Her name is Clarice “Precious” Jones (Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe). She does well in math at school, but the environment is less than encouraging. She’s 16 and she can’t even read. The principal eventually recommends that Precious try an alternative school where she would learn her letters, reading, and writing. We quickly learn of her life at home with her abusive mother, Mary (Mo’Nique). Mary is always yelling and throwing things at her. The main reason for this being that Mary blames Precious for her boyfriend leaving after having raped Precious, which resulted in the child now being looked after by her grandmother and another baby that she will give birth to soon.
Despite the lack of encouragement from her mother, Precious enrolls in the alternative school and becomes a pupil of Ms. Rain (Paula Patton). Here she practices writing every day and gets much better at reading. Meanwhile, she visits with a social worker, Mrs. Weiss (Mariah Carey), who talks with Precious about how things are going at home and at school. When the second baby is born, things finally come to a head in both her home and school lives.
“Precious” is one of those rare instances where it appears that there is no acting involved, and I mean that in a good way. The performers are so absorbed into their characters that you really feel as if these characters exist and that this situation is happening. It’s rare enough to find one performer in any movie able to pull this off, but when all of your main characters can do it, it’s quite something.
Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe, in her first role, is very effective as the titular character. You can feel her suffering as she tries to fit in at school and tries to survive her life at home with her terrible mother. She plays Precious as someone who’s almost given up all hope at leading a normal life, that is, until things finally begin to change for her when she prospers at her new school.
Mariah Carey is also very effective as Precious’s social worker, Mrs. Weiss. We can tell that she really wants to help her, but she must first get Precious to open up and tell her about what’s been going on in her life. I imagine it would take a very special social worker to get someone to open up and admit to being raped by their father, twice. With this role, perhaps Carey’s fans will begin to forgive her for “Glitter.”
The most compelling performance of the film comes from Mo’Nique. Most people know her as a comedian who starred in sit-coms like “The Parkers.” If that’s all that people thought she had in her, they will be completely blown away when they witness her performance in this film. She is painfully cruel to Precious while at home, while at other times, you almost believe her when she says she wants to be reunited with Precious and her grandchildren, but it’s very obvious that she will never change her ways.
Some of the most shocking scenes of the film are when Precious is at home. The things that her mother says to her are unrelentingly cruel. It’s no wonder that Precious has such little confidence about herself. It seemed that in almost every scene of her home life, he mother would throw a heavy object at her. Later in the film, when Precious is leaving their apartment, this becomes even more shocking as the situation becomes much worse.
The one strange thing about Precious’s situation with her mother (besides her mother being a complete nutcase) was that Precious could have stood up to her a lot earlier than she did. There wasn’t really any reason for her to take all of that abuse when something could have been done about it much earlier. Luckily, she does eventually stand up to her, refusing to take anymore of the abuse that had driven her to hate her mother.
This all leads up to a powerful scene at the end, which I’ll just say, brings the film to a good conclusion. Three of the main characters sit down to have a chat that will ultimately decide their fates. Mo’Nique may have earned herself a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination with just this scene. It becomes surprising that the film has an uplifting note of hope throughout so much hardship that Precious must suffer through. It makes you feel that, even in the harshest of conditions, there is hope for everyone.
3/4 stars.
You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.