Hope is Precious
A review of the year's most talked-about movie
Lily Rowan
Issue date: 3/5/10 Section: Can You Hear Me Now
Take a minute and try to imagine this scene in your own life:
You wake up in a cold sweat with heavy breaths. Your bones are painfully aching with fright. You're unsure of how long you have been asleep and unable to remember any detail of your last waking hours. Then, instantly and out of nowhere, the memories of where you were all night hit you like a brick in the face, making you recoil with physical and emotional disgust.
No, you weren't having dinner with your family, and no, you weren't watching a movie at a friend's house. Your activities from last night included being force-fed nauseating food, watching one of your children be abused by your mother and being raped by a member of your family.
Roll film, and welcome to the charmed life of Claireece "Precious" Jones.
The horrific events of the scene mentioned above represent a day in the life of Precious, whose name serves as the title for this sensational film.
Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Precious is set in Harlem, New York in not-so-distant 1987. The main character, Precious, (played superbly by actress Gabouray Sidibi) is a 16-year-old African American girl living in the emotional and physical squalor of her mother's prison-like home.
At the start of the film Precious is pregnant with her second child, who is, like her first child, the result of rape by her own biological father. We see early on that although Precious has endured tremendous setbacks in her family life, she has an incredible talent for mathematics. But, like everything else that falls short in Precious' life, her poorly equipped public school fails to recognize or appreciate her talent.
Discouraged by her school's administrative officials, Precious slowly loses faith in her capabilities until one remarkable individual pushes her to embrace her gift and her future by enrolling into an "alternative" school." In this new setting, Precious meets Ms. Rain (played by Paula Patton) and for the first time in her 16 years she is able to develop a true sense of self through friendships, writing and the inspiration of her remarkable teacher.
However, Precious' struggles are far from over-throughout the rest of the movie she is presented with one emotional hurdle after another, jumping through hoops to find any real sense of hope, happiness and belonging in the world. Through fantastical daydreams Precious tries to escape from her own personal version of hell, but the trauma of her sexual assaults still has a visible impact on her sense of identity and self-confidence.
Chilling and harrowing, Precious shatters the barriers Americans erect between societal sects by refusing to censor its own horror. By bringing incest, violence, and terror to the forefront as unavoidable results of race-based poverty, the film forces viewers to reconcile the way they want to view American society with the reality of our social structure.
Regardless of age, gender, class, or race, you should see this movie. It will awaken you to the horrors we, as a nation, constantly perpetuate as we try to ignore the devastating consequences of our system's underlying racism.
***
Precious is 109 minutes and stars Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd and Lenny Kravitz.
You wake up in a cold sweat with heavy breaths. Your bones are painfully aching with fright. You're unsure of how long you have been asleep and unable to remember any detail of your last waking hours. Then, instantly and out of nowhere, the memories of where you were all night hit you like a brick in the face, making you recoil with physical and emotional disgust.
No, you weren't having dinner with your family, and no, you weren't watching a movie at a friend's house. Your activities from last night included being force-fed nauseating food, watching one of your children be abused by your mother and being raped by a member of your family.
Roll film, and welcome to the charmed life of Claireece "Precious" Jones.
The horrific events of the scene mentioned above represent a day in the life of Precious, whose name serves as the title for this sensational film.
Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Precious is set in Harlem, New York in not-so-distant 1987. The main character, Precious, (played superbly by actress Gabouray Sidibi) is a 16-year-old African American girl living in the emotional and physical squalor of her mother's prison-like home.
At the start of the film Precious is pregnant with her second child, who is, like her first child, the result of rape by her own biological father. We see early on that although Precious has endured tremendous setbacks in her family life, she has an incredible talent for mathematics. But, like everything else that falls short in Precious' life, her poorly equipped public school fails to recognize or appreciate her talent.
 Media Credit: Wikimedia.org Precious: Broken Into Pieces |
Discouraged by her school's administrative officials, Precious slowly loses faith in her capabilities until one remarkable individual pushes her to embrace her gift and her future by enrolling into an "alternative" school." In this new setting, Precious meets Ms. Rain (played by Paula Patton) and for the first time in her 16 years she is able to develop a true sense of self through friendships, writing and the inspiration of her remarkable teacher.
However, Precious' struggles are far from over-throughout the rest of the movie she is presented with one emotional hurdle after another, jumping through hoops to find any real sense of hope, happiness and belonging in the world. Through fantastical daydreams Precious tries to escape from her own personal version of hell, but the trauma of her sexual assaults still has a visible impact on her sense of identity and self-confidence.
Chilling and harrowing, Precious shatters the barriers Americans erect between societal sects by refusing to censor its own horror. By bringing incest, violence, and terror to the forefront as unavoidable results of race-based poverty, the film forces viewers to reconcile the way they want to view American society with the reality of our social structure.
Regardless of age, gender, class, or race, you should see this movie. It will awaken you to the horrors we, as a nation, constantly perpetuate as we try to ignore the devastating consequences of our system's underlying racism.
***
Precious is 109 minutes and stars Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd and Lenny Kravitz.
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