Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

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Moving Forward Through The Past


          Oscar Wilde once wrote about the morbidity of modern society's sympathy with pain: "The less said about life's sores, the better."  This restrained philosophy is the base of the thematic core of director Lee Daniels' sophomore film Precious.  Sometimes movies act as entertainments in themselves, and sometimes these entertainments stand for something more than mere escapism.  Occasionally, however, a movie such as Precious will contain neither of these features, and instead, will stand on its own merit, with no need for glossy entertainment or pretentious moral reasoning.  Life is sometimes just that: life.  Sometimes, life has no words in response to its questions.

          Precious is a hard movie to watch, but a very worthwhile film to experience.  The film is shot in an almost documentary-like fashion, which helps augment the strong sense of rawness and vulnerability found within many of the film's key performances.  Precious tells the story of an illiterate teenager named Clarieece Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), who has already experienced a lifetime of unimaginable abuse and suffering.  Her father sexually abused her and impregnated her with 2 children; her mother is physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive towards her; she is overweight and consequently made fun of by her school peers; she has no friends, and instead takes care of her abusive mother (who is on welfare) by cooking her meals, and cleaning up around the house.  The list goes on, and on, and on.  Thankfully, the courage for a better life is carried along with her, as Precious never gives up hope for herself and her future, even when her life has seemingly hit rock-bottom.


          Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe gives one of the best performances of the year, and one which will surely land her an Oscar nomination come February.  It is one of those jaw-dropping performances that is so overwhelmingly powerful, that upon finishing the movie one cannot help but feel fully connected to her character.  Sidibe infuses the fictional character of Precious with such raw humanity, that one completely forgets she's fictional at all.  This authentic sense of empathy instilled in the viewer, is accomplished thanks to Sidibe's seamless balancing act between the horrors of her character's past and present, and the blissful fantasies of her unknown future.

          These fantasy sequences occur a few times throughout the course of the movie, and are brilliantly staged by Lee Daniels and cinematographers Andrew Dunn and Darren Lew.  The garish lighting and flamboyant sets in these sequences are beautifully expressionistic of Precious' inner yearning to escape her horrific living conditions, while at the same time they reflect the artificiality of her ever realizing such a polarized experience.  On the opposite spectrum, the contrasting atmosphere of her abusive flashbacks is of equal brilliance in lighting and design.  In contrast to the obtrusive glitz used in the fantasy scenes, the flashback sequences are shot using very little light.  With its jarring editing, dizzying camerawork, and great use of light and shadow, these flashback scenes are truly menacing and quite difficult to sit through.  They are, however, important bits of filmmaking, due to the realism they show in portraying the true nature of abusive flashbacks.
        
          The other remarkable performance in Precious, and a shoo-in for a best supporting actress Oscar, comes from Mo'Nique as Precious' mother Mary.  As central to the film as Precious is, it's the character of her mother who truly drives the film's thematic power.  Mo'Nique is mesmerizing (and equally frightening) throughout her entire performance, but there is one scene towards the end of the film involving Mary, Precious, and Precious’ social worker that becomes a crucial turning point for Precious' future.  Without a doubt, Mary is a horrible mother and a villain in the truest of senses.  There’s never any true justification for her motives or actions, and as such it could have been easy for Mo'Nique to turn Mary into a caricature.  However, the way in which Mo'Nique handles this seedy character is nothing short of phenomenal.  So as to not risk revealing any of the crucial details of the emotionally climatic scene nor its turning point, I will refrain from discussing it any further.  I will, however, hark back to Oscar Wilde's quote on human anguish, which, as a philosophy, mirrors the key decision made by Precious towards the end of the film.

          As students of any subject matter, whether it be science, religion, literature, philosophy, psychology, etc., it is always important to look to the future.  In order to succeed with these forward strides, however, a diligent student must always be mindful of past inspirations in his or her field.  Only when it comes to the subject of life itself, does the student’s diligence become truly imperative.  In Precious, the titular character is forced to endure an unfathomable amount of abuse, on route to her self-discovery.  Nothing will ever erase the horrors she had to go through.  Not even the wisdom of her social worker and all of her schooling can help Precious remake her past.  Sometimes, there is just nothing that can be done.  It is with these precious cases, however, that the less said, the more accomplished.