Since there’s a sticker on the new DVD for “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire†that hypes its six Academy-Award nominations as a selling point, it’s probably no accident that it got released two days after the Oscarcast. Given all of the different categories it turned up in, you can tell that this is one of those films that has lots of great talent behind it. It’s a good thing, too, because everyone here allows it to work on a variety of levels, which helps it rise above the shortcomings of the story. Without the right people involved, this movie might’ve fallen flat on its face.
At the center of everything is Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), an illiterate, obese 16-year-old who lives in Harlem with her mother, Mary (Mo’Nique). She used to have a father, but he walked out on her after putting her through years of sexual abuse, leaving her with one child and pregnant with another. Mary’s convinced that the whole thing is her daughter’s fault, and lets her know it through different kinds of abuse. All of the beatings and insults become so routine that she trains herself to black out during some of them.
Her surroundings at school are only slightly better, and when she gets suspended and has to transfer to an alternative school, she expects it to be no different than the old one. Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), a teacher who’s easy to like but not without a temper, understands how difficult life is for Precious and tries to bring some kind of stability to it, as does Mrs. Weiss (Mariah Carey), a social worker who’s touched by her story. Precious knows it’s not just her life that’s on the line, though – she has a responsibility to her new son, and wants to be a better parent than the ones she got.
No one at this late date needs to be told just how much Mo’Nique does with her role (she was pretty much a lock for the best supporting-actress Oscar this year), but what’s really great is how little she does with it. You’d think that with all of the drama that wound up in the trailer, Mo’Nique would’ve went over the top through the whole film. Not at all. Although it must’ve been hard to put the reins on a character like Mary, Mo’Nique understands that she isn’t there just for the sake of being evil, and that there’s still a person behind all that barbed wire. If Mo’Nique hadn’t given her the control she deserved, Mary might’ve come off as some kind of a super villain from a cartoon.
Everybody else here does a good job making the material work too, though you have to admit that Carey steals the show as the social worker who delves into Precious’ life. It’s a role that requires more nerve than you’d expect – when she asks Mary to explain the years of abuse that her daughter’s been through, she’s ready to deal with all the heartbreak and protests and rationalizing and tears.
So many gifted people were involved with this film that there are times when it seems it has more talent than it knows what to do with. Consider Lenny Kravitz’s performance as the nurse who takes a liking to Precious after delivering her newborn son – a relationship begins to develop but then dribbles off into the ether, which makes you wonder why it had to be there to start with. The story is so concerned with its main character that most of the people in her world don’t get the same gravity that she does, leaving everybody else in the cast with so little to play off of.
Still, if there’s any one thing that this movie does well, it’s finding enormous things in tiny packages. How else could it have found so much depth in a book that’s only 192 pages long?
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