Nothing I write, nothing others have written, can really convey the power of Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.
Which may be why I have been struggling since Saturday to write a review of it... or indeed, to write almost anything.
Precious is astonishing, overwhelming, powerful, brilliant... and heartbreakingly sad, unbelievably hopeful, and like nothing that's come before... and yet, is a completely timeless, archetypal story of survival through adversity. All that, and it forces you to see what we try, very hard, not to see, in our lives, our cities, and our culture.
Set, ostensibly, in 1987, Precious is the story of Precious Jones, a 16 year old African American woman living in poverty. She likes school, but is barely getting by, when it is discovered that she is pregnant... with her second child. All of which is announced to us in about the first 5 minutes.
Finding out how Precious got to this point, and what she does beyond it, is the story of the film. The film is frank, often brutal in depicting the painful home life Precious has with her mother, who is physically, verbally and emotionally abusive. In the dark, run down apartment they share, you can see how Precious holds herself tightly within, because to reveal herself is to invite more abuse. And you can see - via brilliant, beautiful realizations of her dreams and fantasies - how much Precious holds within that is vibrant, alive and ready to break free.
The opportunity Precious has to break free comes when she is transferred to an alternative school for at risk women, a small class of about 8, led by an impassioned, caring teacher. Through her lessons, Precious learns to read, to express herself (they have to write a daily journal), and to share her hopes and dreams, fears and mistreatments.
If education is the window of opportunity it is, as is often observed, also dangerous: as Precious learns to feel better about herself and to realize that she can achieve the things she wants, it becomes impossible for her mother to maintain the level of control necessary to keep Precious servile and fearful. And when Precious reveals, in heartbreaking detail, how she got to be 16 with two children to her social worker, her whole world is up-ended, and the cycle of abuse comes to a powerful, fury-filled climax.
Created in the eighties at the height of the "welfare queen" and Reagan era discussions of reforming welfare and breaking "cycles of dependency", Sapphire's novel takes on a number of preconceptions and refuses to provide easy, rote answers; the reality of life on welfare and in poverty is complicated, the life situations painful and complex (which is why, though the film visually straddles the present and the recent past, the 1987 setting is so necessary: welfare as we knew it is not we have now).
Director Lee Daniels great achievement, then, is to let those larger societal observations come through without having them take over the story. However one feels about the "cycle of dependency" or how one views the system of welfare, Precious reminds us at every turn that this is, ultimately, a human story where the larger implications mean nothing if we can't see or feel the people in question.
Daniels real strength as a director lies in his work with actors, and here he mixes the work of newcomers, veterans and unexpected celbrities and gets amazing work out of everyone. That Mariah Carey is virtually unrecognizable as the social worker Precious goes to and ultimately reveals her story to is by itself breathtaking; or Lenny Kravitz taking a part that ten years would have belonged to Jeffrey Wright and shows that he too has the depth and sensitivity to be the lone, decent male in the proceedings. And who knew Sherri Shepherd - that's right, on The View - was such a capable, naturalistic performer.
But Precious hinges on three central performances, all of them brilliant, yet different. Paula Patton imbues the teacher, Blue Rain, with such passion and sense of purpose that she manages to override notions that the part is, at times, almost too good to be true. We do not get enough images of teachers who honor their profession; we need more of it.
As Precious, Gabourey Sidibe more than holds her own opposite her remarkable costars, all the more amazing for a newcomer and nonprofessional. In the beginning her impassive, defiant look seems to define all that we can know about Precious; yet, by degrees, we begin to see the difference between the armor Precious uses to protect herself in the world and the strength and inner resilience she has to carry her through. It's all there in Sidibe, and because of her size, and her dark skin, she also serves to challenge our notions of how, even now, we marginalize some of the black experience - never mind our weightist obsessions with showing only thin people - in favor of other, easier, views that fit our cultural expectations.
Even more, though, the film's real force of nature is Mo'Nique, as Mary, the mother who is, by turns, monstrous, frightening, and intensely vulnerable. To me, her performance is something on the level of Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce (or Bette Davis in The Little Foxes), harking back to the golden age actresses and their ability to play such fascinating, monstrous characters because of their ability to hold us, riveted, in their fierce, fearsome star power. That Mo'Nique trusts Daniels enough to "drab down" her usual star qualities, and disappear into Mary's selfish, childlike demanding nature is remarkable; but the real power is how, in the end, she delivers the monologue that brings together all we have seen and fills in the blanks that take the story to its final, desperate, heartbreaking yet necessary conclusion.
In the four days since I've seen it, Precious has come back to me, every day, refusing to let go. Even now, I can weep for the girl and her pain, or smile at her determination and refusal to be, literally, held down. By degrees, the film continues to reveal itself, to make me think, and to see. To realize my own privileges, to recognize that I have been blessed, as most of us are, with a life nowhere near so challenging and a family that is there to love and support me. Gratitude, and hope for our humanity, really, is this film's unexpected gift. Precious has made me think about the world I - we - try to shut out, explain away, talk our way around... so that we don't have to face the hardships, the desperation... but also miss the strength and determination that drives someone to become the best person they can be.
Precious could, easily, give into simply making the audience suffer and feel bad for all that we don't do, as a society, even now, for those in need. Instead, it let's us see that, even in the darkest moments and most difficult lives, there are things that can lift indviduals out of despair, if only they will try. And no, the film is not perfect - at times seeming unrealistic, visually held back by what was clearly a very low, tight budget - but for what it is, what it accomplishes, and what it reveals... Precious is nothing short of a miracle, a revelation. It demands to be seen. And I have to demand that you see it.
Comments