Precious (2009)

Precious is the story of Claireese Precious Jones, a 16-year old girl who lives in Harlem in New York. Living with her verbally and physically abusive mother, she is pregnant for the second time after being raped by her father. The film follows the next few months of Precious’s life as she strives to educate herself, despite her circumstances.

Initially I thought this film was a bit meh. Precious, played Gabourey Sidibe, is obviously in a horrible situation, and one which it is hard to see a way out of, but I found it hard to engage with her as a character, even with the addition of some first person voice-over. That’s not to say I didn’t care about what was going on, but for the 30 minutes or so I wasn’t that interested, and could have quite happily abandoned it.  That changes with the introduction of Ms Rain (Paula Patton) – Precious’s teacher at the new ‘alternative school’. Here was a bit of momentum to the plot and with it several new charismatic characters to liven it all up; and here was where I started enjoying it.

The problem is, it’s all just quite good, right to the end. I was never completely absorbed in the story – perhaps it’s simply because I can’t relate to it, but perhaps it’s because of Precious’s slightly sulky attitude which (while completely justified) does do much to make me like her. What lifts it all up is the simply superb acting by Mo’Nique, playing Precious’s mother. For such an attractive woman to turn herself into that miserable repulsive wreck is hugely impressive and I will recommend the film to everyone purely for the spectacle of that performance. Turning from an aggressive self-serving menace at the beginning to a vulnerable but cowardly woman at the end was a transformation that wonderful to watch and it’s a shame how few serious roles Mo’Nique has done. She completely deserves all of the Best Supporting Actress awards she received.

I successfully avoided getting annoyed by the cameos too. Mariah Carey is good enough as Ms Weiss, a social worker, and I didn’t even notice Lenny Kravits was the friendly maternity nurse John. Why everyone kept banging on about Carey in this is a mystery to me though. Well done her – she’s made herself look plain, unglamorous and 80s. In any other film I’d probably be impressed but next to Mo’Nique she just seems average.

I won’t bother seeing Precious again, but it is nice to have an opinion on it after hearing so much over the years.