Five stars (out of five). Rating: R, for rape, child abuse, drug use, dramatic intensity and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.3.09
Buy DVD: Precious
• Buy Blu-Ray: Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire [Blu-ray]
Some dramas are so persuasively powerful that they become more "real" than documentaries.
Director Lee Daniels' mesmerizing handling of Precious is just such a film.
I was so caught up in the story — so thoroughly immersed in Gabourey Sidibe's powerful lead performance — that at one point, late in the film, as Claireece "Precious" Jones gets out of a car in the midst of a brutal Harlem snowfall, I was immediately concerned that she'd better get inside quickly, lest she get cold.
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| Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe, left) sees her mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), smile only when a social worker visits; the facade crumbles the moment the interloper leaves the slum apartment, at which point Mary reverts to her usual level of toxicity. Mo'Nique's performance is a horror story of poisonous motherhood: a benchmark that stands alongside other memorable monster parents such as Shelley Winters ("A Patch of Blue") and Angela Lansbury ("The Manchurian Candidate"). |
The notion that this was a film — fiction — was long gone. I may as well have been watching this narrative through a window; it was genuinely happening, at that moment.
Although tremendously difficult to watch -— the story is unapologetically frank, and frequently brutal — Precious is a work of art in the truest sense: a film put together with unerring care, blending superlative performances with a storytelling style that both suits its environment, and respects its characters (those who deserve respect, I hasten to add).
Geoffrey Fletcher's gripping script is based on the book Push, a Novel by Sapphire
, and it's as harrowing a slice of inner-city despair as ever has been conveyed on film. And yet, despite its bleak environment and frequently disturbing content, it emerges as a most unlikely empowerment saga: proof that the human spirit, no matter how beaten down and degraded, can flicker into unlikely glory if granted encouragement. And love. Most importantly, love.
After experiencing a story such as this, one is inclined to believe that love is more crucial to human survival than breathing.
Sidibe's presence dominates this film — she's in nearly every scene -— and not simply because of her breathtaking size. She's a huge young woman of 16: tragically overweight thanks to a foul diet and a tendency to overeat as compensation for her miserable life. (You'll not regard fried chicken and McDonald's fast food quite the same way, after this film.)
We're riveted to her misery: an eternal expression of vacant despair that flows from her eyes — which miss nothing — and the grim set of her mouth. I'm grateful to the recent talk-show appearances that have revealed Sidibe to be a vivacious young woman with a ready smile; it's both nice to see her capable of such gaiety, and to be reminded that her work in this film is "only" acting.
But what acting. "Heartache" isn't a strong enough word to describe our reaction to Precious.
