Movie Review: Precious

LITTLE ROCK — Movies come, movies go. A rare few arrive like gifts, sent by some cosmic messenger to awaken compassion and empathy. Such is the movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, which qualifies as the most improbably beautiful film of the year.

It’s hard to believe that a movie that traffics so operatically in images of brutality and squalor can be so fleet, assured and lyrical. But such contradictions abound in Precious, which in the course of introducing the viewers to unspeakable despair, manages to imbue them with an exhilarating sense of hope - if not in a bright and cheery future for the protagonist, at least in the possibilities of cinema as a bold, fluent and adamantly expressive art form.

That protagonist is Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), a 16-year old girl who, as the movie opens, is still attending junior high school in 1980s Harlem. Morbidly obese, functionally illiterate, pregnant with her second child after being raped by her father, Precious lives with her mother, Mary (Mo’Nique), in a squalid apartment where she endures the latter’s near-constant verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Precious’ only escape is rich, glittery fantasy life.

Precious is numb, locked behind protective layers of fat and clothing, her eyes nearly sightless slits. She’s invisible, even to herself: When she looks in the mirror, a blond, blue-eyed teenager gazes back. But when an attentive principal enrolls her in an alternative education program, Precious’ passivity and self abnegation begin to give way to seismic temblors of transformation.

Director Lee Daniels doesn’t flinch from confronting viewers with the most squalid depredations Precious suffers at her mother’s hands. But he instinctively knows when to offer viewers and his heroine relief, by way of brightly lit, sumptuously staged magical realist sequences portraying Precious’ daydreams. He pulls off this balancing act throughout Precious, which toes a line between the grim and stylized.

Yet his most crucial task is giving his cast the space to deliver revelatory performances. Sidibe’s nuanced, deeply sympathetic portrayal of a character who is almost completely inert for most of the movie recalls Billy Bob Thornton’s breakout turn in Sling Blade.

Hers is a far more difficult role than the toxic monster brought to life by Mo’Nique. But the entire enterprise is best appreciated as an ensemble piece, in which even the smallest roles harmonize flawlessly within the whole. Not one but two pop stars prove their dramatic bona fides in Precious: Lenny Kravitz as a compassionate hospital nurse, and Mariah Carey, devoid of makeup, delivering a frank, winning performance as a seen-it-all social worker.

“What does it mean when the author describes the protagonist’s circumstances as unrelenting?” Precious’ teacher Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) asks at one point. That’s precisely the question posed by the movie, as Precious withstands such a plague of social ills she’s in danger of becoming little more than a simplistically drawn, even grotesque, poster child. (The same can be said for Mo’Nique’s Mary, who in many ways embodies stereotypes of welfare queens and the pathology of poverty.)

That Precious dodges these assumptions, even while coming perilously close to perpetuating them, is a testament not only to the artistry of Daniels’ filmmaking, but also to actors who, rather than skimming the surface of their characters, invariably dive ever deeper inside, taking viewers with them.

That journey winds up being excruciating, exhausting and, against all odds, deeply rewarding.

MovieStyle, Pages 41 on 11/20/2009

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