A moving, uneven drama whose performances make its hardest passages worth facing. Lee Daniels sometimes presses the suffering too hard, but Gabourey Sidibe gives Precious a life beyond the injuries inflicted on her.
Precious is a moving drama that sometimes pushes so hard it risks wearing out our sympathy. Lee Daniels asks us to spend time with an abused teenager whose mother is herself a source of cruelty, and he does not approach the material delicately. What makes the film worth the discomfort is Gabourey Sidibe, who gives Precious feelings and opinions beyond whatever terrible thing is being done to her. Geoffrey S. Fletcher adapts Sapphire’s novel Push, keeping the girl’s struggle to accept herself at the centre.
Sidibe’s performance keeps us alert to the girl inside a story that could easily reduce her to a succession of injuries. Precious’s humour matters here: it allows her to be sharp and difficult without making either quality a lesson for the audience. We were moved by the stubbornness Sidibe gives her, especially when that humour persists alongside the humiliations. There is pleasure in watching an actor make a character interesting without continually asking us to find her admirable.
Mo’Nique’s Mary makes the domestic scenes hard to sit through. We were frightened by her cruelty towards Precious, because Mo’Nique plays it with a conviction that leaves so little room for anyone else’s feelings. The danger is that Mary becomes so overwhelming that the film has nowhere further to go whenever it returns to her. Mo’Nique holds our attention even then, making Mary’s lack of concern for her daughter persistently alarming.
Andrew Dunn’s cinematography and Roshelle Berliner’s production design contribute to the discomfort of those domestic passages, but we are less convinced by their work in the fantasies. The change of style offers relief, and there is good reason to let the audience breathe too. Yet these passages keep drawing attention to how the film is presenting Precious’s experience, just when Sidibe has made us stop thinking about that. The fantasies also risk making her hopes seem simpler than the person Sidibe is playing.
Editor Joe Klotz has to negotiate those shifts between abuse, fantasy and humour, and the joins can be awkward. A moment of relief occasionally feels imposed before the previous scene has had time to settle. Mario Grigorov’s score adds to the emotional pressure, which is the last thing this material needs. Sidibe and Mo’Nique have already made the suffering clear enough without this further prompting.
Still, Daniels makes room for kindness, and the help Precious receives from other women is essential to the film’s appeal. Paula Patton’s Ms. Rain and Mariah Carey’s Ms. Weiss are welcome presences alongside the two central performances. Stories of survival can become dutiful exercises in waiting for someone to offer help, but Precious’s humour keeps interrupting any such solemnity. Fletcher’s screenplay is most convincing when it lets her have a response other than misery to the people around her.
At 110 minutes, Precious asks for considerable stamina, particularly from anyone sensitive to depictions of abuse. We recommend it for Sidibe and Mo’Nique, with the caveat that Daniels’s urge to underline the suffering can make an already difficult film needlessly wearing. Choose it when there is time afterwards to sit quietly; this is not a drama to squeeze in before bed simply because it fits.
