Review: Precious (2009) ** 1/2
Everyone loves an underdog and you won’t easily find one more extreme than Clarice Precious Jones. She’s an illiterate 16-year-old junior high school student living in Harlem in the 1980s. She’s at least 200 pounds overweight and her physically and emotionally abusive mother is a poster child for a right wing anti-welfare campaign. She has one baby with Down syndrome by her own father and another is on the way as the story begins. Without revealing too much about the narrative arc, suffice it to say things are going to get worse for her before they get better.
With the deck so blatantly stacked against Precious, it’s impossible for anyone with a warm beating heart not to root for her, especially in those moments when she shows a little backbone. Indeed, the suburban audience I saw it with responded in just this way, appropriately gasping with outrage whenever something horrible would happen, crying during the emotional bloodlettings and cheering during the bright spots. Unfortunately, director Lee Daniels can’t resist manhandling his already over-the-top story (based on the novel Push by Sapphire) with a series of awkward filmmaking choices that open the door to cynicism and undermine everything that follows for anyone whose critical faculties aren’t anesthetized by the overwrought drama.
For me, that moment came early on when Precious’ monstrous mother bounces an ashtray off the back of her skull knocking her unconscious. In mental limbo, Precious flashes back to one of the times her father (Mommy dearest’s semi-present boyfriend) rapes her. Luridly filmed in slow motion to capture every ghastly grunt and drip of sweat, shots of the hulking father humping his underage daughter are intercut with close-ups of the laboring bedspring and, inexplicably, shots of frying eggs and chicken. It comes off like a Jean-Pierre Jeunet/Marc Caro movie viewed through a haze of high-octane cough medicine. Literally comical, it invites the skepticism you need to leave at home in order to have any hope of being absorbed in the film.
Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe is wholly believable and sympathetic as Precious. It’s a committed, natural performance that never milks the overcooked melodrama for effect. It’s too bad neither the story nor director Daniels provide an adequate vehicle for her budding talents.
Actress/comedienne Mo’nique meanwhile is memorable as Precious’ freak show of a mother. Unfortunately she’s rarely asked to hit more than one note. She’s a medusa who exists solely as an obstacle for our hero to overcome. Even near the end when the script dictates she melt down in front of Mariah Carey’s tough-as-nails but gold-hearted social worker, it’s as much a put-on as the wig she wears whenever the welfare representative stops by for a visit. Precious would’ve been a stronger, more viable film if it had ever really tapped the surface of this character and Mo’nique is clearly up to the task, but her services are never required.
Narratively, the film’s pacing is way off. Precious’ life is essentially a series of roadblocks she must navigate, but the biggest one is saved for very near the end before it’s quickly brushed under the carpet to make room for a vaguely upbeat ending that is both unearned and largely takes the sting out of the horrors that came before. You spend the last half of the film waiting for things to go somewhere or wrap up and when they suddenly do, it feels half-hearted.
If you want to have your nose rubbed in the problems of the inner city and get your cry on before leaving the theater feeling that all is right with the world even as you are modestly chastened for your middle class comfort, Precious is just the film for you. On the other hand, if you’re not susceptible to heavy-handed emotional manipulation and prefer your underdog stories to be delivered with grace, subtlety and depth, look elsewhere.
Precious. USA 2009. Directed by Lee Daniels. Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher from the novel Push by Sapphire. Cinematography by Andrew Dunn. Music score composed by Mario Grigorov. Edited by Jo Klotz. Starring Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz. 1 hour 49 minutes. Rated R for child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive language. 2.5 stars (out of 5)
Filed under: Reviews
Tags: Andrew Dunn, Gabourey Sidibe, Geoffrey Fletcher, Jo Klotz, Lee Daniels, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, Mario Grigorov, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Precious, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Sapphire
If you want to have your nose rubbed in the problems of the inner city and get your cry on before leaving the theater feeling that all is right with the world even as you are modestly chastened for your middle class comfort, Precious is just the film for you.
Ooh. And to be honest, this was exactly my reaction to Slumdog Millionaire.
I’ve heard great things about Gabourey Sidibe though. And she’s already filming like 2 or 3 other films.
This review expresses every anticipatory fear I had about the film. Your film eviscerations are as well written as the paens.
I share your lack of regard for this thing, Craig. Sidibe made me want to like the film, but that’s not enough. Mind you, there are things I liked about it, but they didn’t add up to enough. I could barely sit still in my seat waiting for it to end.
“…if you’re not susceptible to heavy-handed emotional manipulation and prefer your underdog stories to be delivered with grace, subtlety and depth, look elsewhere.”
I’d suggest: Samson and Delilah.
Yep, I completely agree Craig. The more I think of this film, the lower it gets in my estimation. It’s shameless.
I’m surprised by the general agreement here so far since everyone seems to love Precious. I don’t get it.
In some cases, I think people are afraid to hate it. Whether it’s because of the calcified critical consensus out of Sundance or fear of charges of racism, I don’t know, but even Jeff Wells who seems bound and determined to take the film down won’t outright admit he hated it.
I’ve been hearing more and more about S&D, Ryan. Thanks for the tip.
I get that disgusting Slumdog Millionaire/Oliver Twist vibe coming off this film, even though it’s been recommended by a few friends who I know to have good taste. But I don’t think I have the patience to sit through another of those manipulative stories that give you a false uplift, give you that happy ending when you know most real people in that situation would still be suffering. Call it the Dickens complex–rescued from on high by the earnest (rich) white folks.
To Precious’ credit, it doesn’t stoop to the same level as The Blind Side where privileged white people save the day.
I don’t want to say too much about the ending for those who haven’t seen it, but it’s debatable how “Happy” it is. Still it felt artificial somehow.
I was even more annoyed when I found out this wasn’t a true story. As I was watching it I was prepared to forgive some of its grosser exaggerations because I thought they were rooted in truth rather than in manipulation.
As you know I’m in a similar way of thinking about Precious, but unlike others, for whatever reason I don’t see it as similar to Slumdog (which you also know that I loved). For one thing it’s not nearly as light-hearted or as beautiful to watch, but on a deeper level I think it presents a character with a lot more pluck and positivity, and in general portrays a more well-balanced and even more respectful image of India. The ending is not necessarily any more “real” or “happy” than that of Precious, but then I also see Slumdog as much more of a fable or fairy tale in the first place. Precious is meant to be rooted in reality and maybe a kind of social indictment of sorts, but I think it oversteps the bounds of good taste and cultural common sense in abusing the audience into submission and, worse still, possibly furthering the stereotypes that have created the very problem it depicts.
I don’t know, that’s a kind of scattered defense of SM in this context, but I’m trying to explore why I loved it so much more than Precious.
I liked SM then had a backlash to it when the hype really started mounting. It wasn’t anything like my favorite movie of the year, but I liked it a lot.
Precious. Not so much, though I kind of feel I’m being a little hard on it…in part because of the critical drooling it’s been getting.
“I think it oversteps the bounds of good taste and cultural common sense in abusing the audience into submission and, worse still, possibly furthering the stereotypes that have created the very problem it depicts.” Exactly
SM was a little dicey because I can’t help but feel it was using a very real problem as a backdrop for entertainment and it too easily let the audience off the hook, if that makes any sense. But at the same time, it wasn’t intended to be a socially conscious message movie.
I never got the sense in SM that the poverty and all its grim realities was simply a backdrop for entertainment. The first part of the film worked best for me and I was left with no doubt about the dire socioeconomic circumstances of the slums. But within such realities people, in particular children, continue to find adventure and excitement. The two are not mutually exclusive and the happier preoccupations of their lives doesn’t excuse the unacceptability of their hardships.
Well said, sartre, and I know you’ve gone to bat for that movie extensively.
Saying it’s similar to Precious is I think a little unfair. Or at least it seems like those who are making the comparison (sorry Alison and WJ, not trying to call you out) may not have seen Precious yet. So I feel like it’s more a comparison that people are making between the popular reaction of the films, more so than between the films themselves, if that makes sense.
Sorry, didn’t mean to turn this into yet another SM thread.
lol. There’s no harm in reminding everyone of a beloved Oscar winner.
What I was getting at Sartre is that SM exposes us to the Slums of India, but never asks us to do anything about them and in fact sort of lets us off the hook in the end with a happy ending and a song and dance number.
There’s no real lesson learned beyond a basic reminder that life is hard elsewhere. It’s local color.
Perhaps my problem is not so much with the film as it is with the typical facile Westerner’s response to it. Present company excepted, naturally.