Precious is a film that demands watching and it suffers from the same challenge to review Brokeback Mountain wrought in that - to be politically correct - one is forced to be positive about the movie noting the subject matter. You can't very well bash a black overweight teenager with two children compliments of her father and a mother who is violently punishing her as a way to deal with her own guilt. And poor Precious is struggling with literacy to boot. All we need added is a drug-addled sibling and a gay cousin and we'd have a real wing-dinger of a movie. Talk about opera! That all said, this film could have been a Sunday night at the movies train-wreck and it does suffer from its own hubris, but on the whole, it gives us two characters well drawn despite their brutal circumstances, filmed - thanks to Lee Daniels - in an MTV style that helps balance the brooding woe. Gabourey Sidbe is competent in her role as the center of this opera but the movie is Mo'Nique's as the mother who's wandered so far down a path darkly that when she finally sees the light, it is too late. While hardly inspirational, Precious is a good film that missed great film thanks squarely to Sapphire's own material.
My rating 8 out of 10.
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