First off, a disclaimer. I’m a do-gooder liberal and a sucker for films that point out the inequities of our society. I couldn’t wait for “Precious” to be released in Sacramento, and considered driving 80 miles to the Bay Area just to watch it a few weeks ago, before it was in wide release. I was ready for a good liberal fest. But if that’s the film you’re looking for, too, you’re going to be disappointed. “Precious” isn’t about the inequities of society. “Precious” is about being human, about life, about finding joy in the smallest of victories.
What you’re reading about the film “Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire” is true. It’s going to win some Oscars this year: the only question is for whom and how many. By the way, that’s the whole title, clearly a product of some fancy negotiations on the author’s agent’s part.
What you aren’t reading about the film is that it’s not only good, but it’s funny too. It is not an easy task to make physical abuse, illiteracy, hopelessness and incest into something that will not only make you laugh, but will also leave you guilt-free about your laughter. Don’t go to this film expecting a comedy, but don’t be surprised when director Lee Daniels skillfully guides the audience to laugh. Like a good comedian, he’s engineered pauses in just the right places, allowing us to relieve some of the intensity that he has just as skillfully built.
You’ve probably already heard the plot, and if you’re anything like me, you think you’ve seen a PG version of this film as an after-school special a couple of dozen times. You haven’t. Clareece Precious Jones (Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe ), goes by the name Precious, even though she clearly is not considered precious by anyone. Sidibe portrays Precious as a remarkably unattractive and overweight African-American 16 year old girl who is pregnant with her second child; both children were conceived from Precious’ father raping her. Precious’ mother (Mo’Nique) only offers Precious more abuse, and the world of taunting boys and impersonal administrators and teachers seems downright warm in comparison to Precious’ home life. Precious enters an alternative school, and the teacher (Paula Patton) helps her to see that she has value in the world, assisted by a social worker (Mariah Carey) and a nurse’s aide (Lenny Kravitz) who take interest in the slow-moving, slow-talking, wall-like blank presence that Precious presents to the world.
Daniels explores race relations, but not from the role of victim—in one scene, Carey’s social worker challenges Precious, who asks her, “You some kind of black or something?” “Tell me what color do you think I am?” responds Carey, who plays her role with a deliberate understatement that is refreshing to see (plain makeup, no unicorns, no low-cut blouses, no Nick Cannon carrying her bags in the background) In a movie that is not overtly about race, Daniels plays with our own arbitrary boundaries: when does brown become black? When does brown become white? Interestingly, Helen Mirren, who is about as white as they come, was originally cast as the social worker. Using Carey, with her own mixed racial heritage, reminds the viewers that race is rarely the sole determiner of who is safe and who is not.
The rape scenes are thankfully short, but intense. Daniels takes the audience with Precious as she disassociates herself from the myriad methods of abuse that her family and the rest of the world seem to offer her. It becomes rapidly clear that the only way that Precious can live in her world is to live outside of it, escaping into imaginative glamor and obtainable only outside of reality. She wishes to die, but “ain’t no plug to pull.” She is a ponderous mountain of a girl, all hefty rolls, barely contained within the confines of the desks or chairs in which she is forced to sit.
Mo’Nique might win an Oscar for her portrayal of Mary, Precious’ mother, and she’ll be robbed if she doesn’t at least garner a nomination for her work. There is little to like about her character, and Mo’Nique does an excellent job of showing the audience exactly how much there is to dislike. Ultimately, the only compassion we can work up for her is tempered by sheer disgust as she justifies allowing Precious’ father to continue to rape his young daughter by asking, “But who else was gonna love me? Who would make me feel good?” She portrays the tough, sad, abused and abusing Mary with a depth that sends an uneasy shock of recognition. We know this woman, we’ve seen her in grocery stores, or in the apartment next door and perhaps we did nothing to stop the abuse we saw, worrying about the consequences to our own hides.
Patton, playing a teacher named the improbable Blu Rain becomes a lifeline for Precious, presenting a quiet performance in compassion. Sapphire, who wrote the novel Push, on which the movie is based (in case you couldn’t figure it out from the long title of the film), was a teacher in an alternative school. It’s not much of a stretch to infer that Sapphire is Blu Rain, and that Rain’s role as Precious’ gentle hero is a reflection of the author’s own role as an educator in Harlem. If there’s a weakness in the film, though, it rests with Geoffrey Fletcher’s writing of Ms. Rain’s character. She is somewhat one-dimensional: Ms. Rain is so kind, so compassionate, so committed to Precious that she is too good to be true. That works for the typical Hollywood movie, and Sapphire may have made it work for the novel (I haven’t read the book), but it is the only complaint I can find about the film—I want Ms. Rain to have a flaw. Or even two.
In a time of films by and about men, though (and, except for Oprah Winfrey’s involvement, this film was directed and produced by men—Tyler Perry was the executive producer), “Precious” has only one male character with significant screen time, the nurse’s aide played by Lenny Kravitz. Kravitz does a good job with his role, showing a homey ease with Precious and her classmates. The preponderance of women in the film, though, their performances of strength, gives me hope that film companies might take note of the possibility that “women’s films” can reach across the gender divide, both artistically and in the form of box office cash.
This is Sidibe’s first movie role, and her talented portrayal of Precious provides an anchor for the rest of the cast. Looking at publicity stills of her, and watching her during her fantasy sequences in the film, she is a beautiful woman. Looking at her onscreen, she is anything but beautiful: walled off, unable to express her essence. It is her touching performance as an imprisoned victim of her family, of society, of herself, that keeps the film’s heart front and center. The audience cares about Precious, we’re rooting for her, and it’s because Sidibe’s performance is stellar in its relentless adherence to Precious’ character.
In a historically inaccurate but moving movie montage, a lone protester is shown facing down a tank in Tienanmen Square (the movie is set in 1987—the Tienanmen Square protests occurred in 1989). The symbolism is clear, though. One person, fighting a giant opponent for all. What “Precious” does, though, is present a portrait of a character who is buoyed by others in her slow, steady battle with the monolith of forces that are aligned against her. Precious will never be middle class—when Ms. Rain is in conversation, Precious says, “They talk like people on tv shows I don’t watch.” Precious fantasizes the ceiling opening while her father rapes her, giving her an escape to another world. In reality, though, it is not fantasy, but learning to read and to speak, to communicate, that ultimately allows Precious some small measure of freedom and even pleasure.
This movie is not about racism, or incest, or the black culture or whatever it is that people are telling you it’s about. “Precious” is a movie steeped in the question of how we can best free ourselves from prisons that are forced upon us, and prisons that we create for ourselves. Who will help you to free yourself? Who can you help to find their freedom? What miracles of being human are grounded in the every day acts of pushing forward, with our hands out to help someone else following behind?
