Precious (2009) - Review Contains Spoilers for Both the Book Push and the Movie

Precious is being heralded as the movie of the year of which pretty much everyone in the movie should get an award. Nothing could be further from the truth. The actress that plays Precious Carmella Jones, does a great job, but her performance is nothing spectacular. Mariah Carey's character is nothing spectacular either. In fact, the only individual in this movie that ties up the loose ends and delivers an award winning performance is Monique, who plays Precious' mother. The movie gives you a peek into 1987 Harlem; the ghetto in the wealthiest borough of New York, arguably that downtown that people think of when they think of New York, you can be a fly on the wall and see ghetto life in a way most of us have not since Beat Street. In fact the eighties are captured perfectly in this film; when Precious has one of her fantasies that allows her to detach herself from the physical and sexual abuse she endures from both her mother and father she is the epitome of quintessential eighties style, men that are actually her age that she would desire are attracted to her.

Precious Jones is an obese, dark skinned Black teenager that fantasizes about being either a famous video girl, a movie actress, or in one case, a Gospel singer performing the song "Soul Holiday", by Sounds of Blackness. At times she looks in the mirror and sees a skinny Caucasian girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. She is never actually a Caucasian girl in her fantasies, but sees herself as one at times when she looks into the mirror. She does seem to embrace her true self in the fantasies, and in them people actually accept her for the dark skinned "heavyset" girl that she truly is. In other fantasies her mother actually loves her and is warm and affectionate. The fantasies are actually a welcome creative diversion from the horrific abuse she endures, both for her and the viewer. When she fantasizes, she does so in a major way, to deal with getting hit on the back of the head with a frying pan or being pushed down on the ground and of course, her father's sexual abuse. Monique does everything to her; verbally abuses her, denigrates both her and her first child, that has down syndrome, sexually abuses her, and towards the end, attempts to drop a television on her while she tries to escape her in a stairwell. All of this stems from the idea that Precious' mother has fixated on; that Precious took her man from her and that her man loves his daughter more than her because she has given him more children than she has. Precious is kicked out of school for having her second child, but enrolls in an alternative school that her mother suggests that she is not good enough to be in. She eventually meets up with Mariah Carey's character, her caseworker, a tough New Yorker that has seen it all that doesn't budge and isn't impressed by the games her or her mother plays in order to stay on welfare.

She eventually tires of lying to her caseworker and her mother gets kicked off of food stamps. She meets a male nurse in the hospital when she goes into labor that has a crush on her; a light-skinned pretty boy that fulfills her fantasies. The movie talks about racism, but in a very subtle way that is under the radar; the only thing that is clear, is that her mother feels that White people are the enemy but Precious feels that they are a way to distance herself from her miserable existence. There is a thread of truth in how her Principal, though she kicks her out of school, suggests that she enrolls in an alternative school where she finds her true calling, and of course the movie starts out with her fantasizing about her White teacher at the school she came from. Everyone that helps out Precious is light, and everyone that abuses her, with the exception of Monique, is dark; it isn't clear whether this is intentional or the directors way of suggesting that Precious' own internalized issues with race and colorism have a way of manifesting themselves.

In one part of the movie Precious is taken in by a lesbian couple, light-skinned of course, and Precious, thinking to herself, reflects on how her mother hates homosexuals but none of them have done to her what heterosexuals have done. She is mesmerized and impressed by their psuedo-intellectual conversation with each other on the night she is taken in. Clearly, the author was trying to make arguments for Black homsexuality in a time when they weren't recognized or accepted in mainstream society (and they still aren't, though this movie goes a long way in accomplishing this considering that the book was written in the nineties) Normally I would not have picked up on these things but given the attention to the light/dark subject in the media as of late you have to wonder if it is coincidental or accidental about the politics that play out in this movie concerning race and sexual orientation. Towards the end, we are sickened by Precious' mother's explanation of why she allowed the sexual abuse and how it began, and how, in feeling lonely because Precious' father wanted his daughter instead of his girlfriend, she felt justified in forcing Precious to perform sexual acts on her. The movie is bittersweet, because though Precious' father has died from AIDS, her mother seems to think that she is okay because there was no anal sex between them, and Precious herself is HIV positive, though she takes custody of her two children and never sees her mother again.

The movie is in no way even close to being as disturbing as the book Push by Sapphire, which it is based on. In the book Sapphire goes into more detail about the sexual abuse and even talks about her physiological response to it, the fantasies, and the end is drawn out as we actually get to see more of the incest survivor meetings that she goes to. The end is different; the movie gives audiences about what they can stomach of Precious' horrific life, then moves on to a bittersweet ending. Those who cannot deal with the subject matter, or are in denial that this happens, are not subjected to the intricate details that are the bread and butter of most "street lit" that are common place throughout the book the movie is based on of. The book is a rough read, and the movie is rough, and takes liberties that most mainstream releases would not take in the independent spirit of film-making. However it is a good movie, and for the most part, has a different look and feel from a lot of the blockbuster movies that are out there. Others may distance themselves from the movie because it was endorsed and heavily promoted by Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, and they did end up producing the movie along with Lee Daniels, the director, it comes across as a collaborative effort, which is a very good thing in this case. Typically I would be leery of a movie with five producers, but this movie works. Give the movie a chance; it isn't the happiest production, and most of the rhetoric you hear from critics is about the shock value of the content, but for the most part it is your typical Independent film, rough, gritty, but with an honesty one is hard pressed to find elsewhere. While I do not necessarily agree with the enthusiastic response to Mariah Carey's performance; of everyone but Lenny Kravitz' character she has the least screen time, and also because she didn't really do a lot of acting in the film, the positive response to her role will help to promote the film. In all this is your typical story of abuse in a housing project of unthinkable magnitude, but executed in a creative way that catches you off guard ...