Salina Art Center

One of the most emotionally affecting films of the last decade, Precious has received a great deal of attention from having executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry foremost among its most passionate and tireless promoters. Unfortunately, sometimes when a “big name” sings a little film’s praises so loudly, there’s a backlash. So it is with Precious, a “little film” from director Lee Daniels and writer Geoffrey Fletcher, starring a talented unknown named Gabourey Sibide. The film is definitely not light Hollywood entertainment, and it might have been just an underground favorite among a few discerning cinemaphiles had it not been for the active involvement of two of the most widely recognized and influential African-American celebrities in the United States. Detractors claim that Winfrey and Perry are pushing the film too hard, seeking awards and trying to get mainstream audiences to go see a movie that won’t make them feel warm and cozy. The rebuttal: it’s just restoring balance to a deserving film that has a lot of obstacles by virtue of its grim subject matter and unflinching depiction of inner-city poverty, abuse, and cruelty. Take away the “distractions” of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, however, and we have a powerful drama that’s tough to watch but never exploitative or extreme. In a justly-acclaimed performance as “Precious,” Sibide is astounding, creating a teenage character rarely seen in films: angry, overweight, nearly illiterate, sullen, and uncommunicative. Her inner life, which we see in glimpses, is a series of dazzling, candy-colored fantasies that contrast even more painfully with the daily reality. She is pregnant (by her father), and her physically abusive mother blames her. At first, Precious seems like the hardened shell of a human being, willfully detached, de-sensitized, merely going through the motions of living. This is a character we all see on the streets, in the school hallways, in hospital emergency rooms and police stations, but rarely in films. They don’t appear on the big screen because they’re “not heroic.”  If we have a main character that is homeless or a victim of abuse or drug addiction or anything “too dark,” he has to also be a super genius or a secret poet or someone who’s willfully hidden himself away from the world. Audiences aren’t trusted to accept a protagonist who endures real tragedy without having some kind of fantastic powers to compensate. But that’s not to say Precious is unrelentingly despairing for the sake of offering a corrective to feel-good entertainment, for its real strength is not the accurate depiction of abuse and neglect, but the equally genuine depiction of hope. For Precious does have caring individuals in her life—including an empathetic teacher (Paula Patton) and a kind-hearted social worker (Mariah Carey, eschewing glamour to remarkably authentic effect). These individuals stand in stark contrast to Precious’s monstrous, hateful mother, played very effectively by comedienne Mo’Nique. Like Sibide (who is ten years older than her character and in real life very outgoing and articulate), Mo’Nique affects a complete transformation of her well-known comic persona, creating a woman who is malevolent and frightening, but whom we suspect was molded by a lifetime of the same abuse Precious endures. The film poses the question: can the daughter break out of that circle of violence and hatred?  The excellence of the film is that the audience is continually and deeply invested in the answer: we want Precious to escape, but how?  She’s not a classical pianist-child prodigy like David Helfgott in Shine, just an ordinary girl with enormous odds stacked against her. But thanks to the sensitive direction by Lee Daniels and an amazing debut performance by Gabourey Sibide—remember the name, she’ll have a long career in film if there’s any justice—Precious is a small masterpiece that skillfully balances both tragedy and hope, illuminating some dark places but also finding rays of light that are often hidden.