 Newspaper View
 Print
 Email
 Comment
 RSS
 Bookmark
If you would like to bookmark this article you will need to Login to your tulsaworld.com account
close
Review: Precious
Home is a veritable torture chamber for Clareece "Precious" Jones, but Precious is a gentle soul — unless provoked. Courtesy
By MICHAEL SMITH World Scene Writer
Published: 11/20/2009 2:21 AM
Last Modified: 11/20/2009 9:23 AM
Clareece "Precious" Jones is an illiterate black teen weighing about 350 pounds. She is brutally abused by her mother, and she is pregnant by her father for a second time.
This is the sordid subject matter and atypical lead character of movies that Americans don't go to the cinema to see. But "Precious" is different; this powerful American film transcends all stereotypes of generational welfare. It shows how one person's courage, in combination with one person who cares enough to help, can change our world.
With promotion by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry as executive producers, this little film is a known commodity that will draw crowds. For its outside-the-box direction and moving performances, "Precious" is beyond being the product of hype; this is one of this year's Oscar favorites.
Living in Harlem in 1987, Precious is one of society's dirty secrets. She has been beaten down into something close to nonexistence, loved by no one and trapped in a carefully cultivated sham of a life.
Her home is a veritable torture chamber, sanitized only for social worker visits that keep government checks coming in for Precious' mother. These are the only times that Precious' first child, who has Down syndrome (he's called Mongo, short for mongoloid), is allowed inside the apartment.
The violence that happens inside this place is as disturbing as it is incomprehensible. This depiction feels a bit heavy-handed in the first half of the film, with the shock value of human car wrecks. But director Lee Daniels is setting the stage for renewal, for a young woman's chance at overcoming something worse than simple adversity.
The only way this film can work is to show harsh realities with no easy answers, and Daniels masters both requirements in imaginative ways.
For example, newcomer Gabourey Sidibe's portrayal of Precious is that of a gentle soul — unless provoked. She mentally checks out of abuse situations (we see her disassociate from a rape into imagining herself the star of a dance program or signing autographs at a red-carpet event). Precious does not appear to be the next generation in a cycle of abuse, the next to hand down a legacy of violence to her babies.
But we can't know that, and Daniels dangles us there, wondering. If not for her new alternative school, if not for the intervention of a teacher determined to teach
Precious to read and to believe in herself, what sins might Precious commit in the future? The quandary is positively Dickensian.
That's life
The strength of the material is often matched by the performances, and Daniels excels in eliciting superb work from new actors who have never taken roles this large or complex.
The contrast is startling between Sidibe's character (a quiet, squinting hulk who plays dumb because she's been told she is) and her dream-world alter ego, free and smiling and wide-eyed.
Comedienne/actress Mo'Nique, as the incendiary mother, Mary, is a devil who's a bit too one-note early in the film. But her closing monologue, full of fear and anger and convoluted logic, is a remarkable combination of confession and cry for help.
Much has been made of this showy performance and of Mariah Carey without makeup as a social worker (she can act as well as sing). But just as good is Paula Patton ("Deja Vu"), whose "compassionate teacher" part has a dynamic rarely seen in these roles: authenticity.
"Precious" feels uncomfortably real at times, as it should: Life is hard. And as we should all know, life is precious.
PRECIOUS
Stars:
Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique,
Paula Patton, Mariah Carey
Theaters:
AMC Southroads 20, Cinemark
Tulsa
Running Time:
1 hour, 50 minutes
Rated:
R (child abuse including sexual
assault, pervasive language)
Quality:
  (on a scale of zero to
four stars)
Michael Smith 581-8479
michael.smith@tulsaworld.com
By MICHAEL SMITH World Scene Writer
Copy Text
Search for this phrase/name
Close
Newspaper View
Print
Email
Comment
RSS
Bookmark
If you would like to bookmark this article you will need to Login to your tulsaworld.com account
close
 |
|
