As an older, slim, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant male, raised and living in middle-class environs, I have about as much in common with an obese, African-American teenage girl living in relative poverty in a crack neighborhood in Harlem, as I have the ability to formulate a really inventive analogy that would cleverly describe the difference. That is to say, not much.
But one must stretch oneself, from time to time, it seems to me – take a stroll over to the other side of the tracks, see how the other half lives, visit other worlds, challenge one’s perspectives on life and society. And so it was that I sat down to watch Precious, or, in an apparent surrender to bad marketing by titling something with a ridiculously long, forgettable name, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. I kid you not. The latter is the official name.
No matter. The movie was good and the performances outstanding. Precious, played by Oscar nominee Gabourey Sibide, is an obese inner-city sixteen-year-old who lives mostly in her head, fantasizing about the life she does not have, nor is likely to ever have. Precious is expelled from her school because she is pregnant. Again. Both pregnancies are the result of rape by her father. Her mother, played by Golden Globe winner Mo ‘Nique, stands idly by, not wanting to lose her man, and in fact jealous of her daughter’s, um, relations with him. She blames Precious for the chain of events and ends up raising her in ways that make Mommie Dearest look like June Cleaver. Expulsion or not, Precious is smart, and it is recommended that she attend an alternative school, led by an encouraging teacher, Blu Rain (seriously), played by the beautiful Paula Patton, who is presented as a lesbian in keeping with the movie’s clear antipathy towards all things male. Lenny Kravitz plays a role in the film, as does Mariah Carey, who, quite frankly, impressed me.
In fact, much of the movie impressed me. But some of it did not, although I was left with the sense that it was definitely supposed to. For one thing, I’m sure I was to have felt sympathy in places where, instead, I just wanted to smack the main characters around. This might have more to do with those differences that I tried to analogize above. For another, I was left feeling as though hope was the supposed order of the day when, in fact, hopelessness was clearly the only certain thing on the menu. One is struck by the sheer bleakness of the lives of people who are born into the situations expressed by this film, situations that are tragically all too real and commonplace. If we are to be honest, we have to admit that anybody raised in circumstances such as those described by this movie wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance of escaping their part in the vicious cycle that perpetuates those very circumstances. I’ll leave it to the viewer to decide if even the main character was able to do so.
Lee Daniels does a fine job directing Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, a film based on a novel. Called Push. By Sapphire. And the performances make the film worth seeing. I only wish it offered answers instead of unjustifiable hope.
7.5/10