Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
by Lee Daniels
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'NiqueDirector: Lee Daniels
Brand: Lions Gate
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 109 minutes
Published: 2010-03-01
DVD Release Date: 2010-03-09
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lionsgate
Product features:
- Condition: Used, Very Good
- Format: DVD
- AC-3; Closed-captioned; Color; Dolby; DVD; Subtitled; Widescreen; NTSC
Movie Reviews of Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
Movie Review: An Instant African-American Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
"Shadowboxer" director Lee Daniels deserves every award and honor that Hollywood and critics around the world can bestow on him for his electrifying African-American social problem film "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire" that casts newcomer Gabourey Sidibe as the troubled heroine. This R-rated, 110-minute urban nightmare probably could not have been made without the help of both Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. You can just imagine what derisive comments greeted this venture when the filmmakers pitched their idea about a theatrical release chronicling a year in the life of an abused obese soul sister. Who would want to suffer through a thoroughly depressing, often offensive movie about a big fat loser trapped in the ghetto? Indeed, when you watch the trailer for this film, you want to suppress a laugh because everything is so hideously horrifying about this poor girl's hopeless existence. She puts up with an incredibly monstrous mother who treats her as if she were own personal slave. Nevertheless, despite its uncompromising subject matter, "Precious" qualifies as an inspiring film that doesn't rely on sugar-coating and a happy ending. Sapphire wrote her 1996 novel "Push" in first-person and adopted a rough, stylized dialect to enhance its verisimilitude. Reportedly, "Push" was Sapphire's homage to "The Color Purple." Ostensibly, Lionsgate--the company that is distributing the Daniels film changed the title from "Push" to "Precious" to avoid any confusion between this powerful film and the lackluster Chris Evans & Dakota Fanning science fiction epic "Push" (2009).
"Precious" depicts in semi-documentary fashion the plight of an illiterate, grotesquely overweight 16-year old Harlem girl poised to give birth to her second child. Ironically, Claireece 'Precious' Jones (newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) has never had a boyfriend. Incidentally, her first child is a four-year-old girl afflicted with Down's syndrome, and her tyrannical, potty-mouthed mother Mary (Mo'Nique of "Soul Plane") despises the adolescent and forces her mother to keep her. At school, Precious' classmates ridicule her Buddha-like physique, but she maintains a stoic imperturbability and ignores their insults. Meanwhile, Mary lets her incestuous boyfriend (Rodney Bear Jackson) rape her daughter while she stands in the background and observes this act of child abuse. No, there is no nudity in these harrowing scenes, but the content may be disturbing enough to alienate some audiences. In fact, Mary has allowed her out-of-control boyfriend to take advantage of Precious since the girl was three years old and mother and daughter shared the same bed with him. As the film unspools, Precious finds herself expelled from her high school because she is pregnant. The conscientious school principal arranges for Precious to attend an alternative school called Each One Teach One where drop-outs go to earn their GED. Precious learns to read and write under the tutelage of her instructor Blu Rain (Paula Patton of "Hitch"), a dedicated but kind teacher who inspires Precious to keep a journal about her life. Meantime, Mary never misses an opportunity to insult, torment, and batter her obsequious daughter. Precious takes everything that her wicked mother can dish out until she comes home with her infant son Abdul. Mary knocks Abdul out of her arms and begins to batter her daughter. Precious fights back, seizes her baby and flees. Precious is in such a hurry that she loses her footing and topples down the stairs. Meanwhile, mom lugs her portable TV outside and hurls it at her daughter. The television barely misses Precious and crashes into a million pieces. Eventually, after Precious has her son, she decides to left her impossible mother and goes to stay with Ms. Patton. If all this drama weren't enough, Precious learns from her mother that her father had contracted the AIDS virus. A brave social worker Mrs. Weiss (pop singer Mariah Carey deglamorized without make-up) helps Precious escape the abuse that her villainous mother doles out with a vengeance. Sure, this sounds as depressing as you can imagine because there is nothing far-fetched about it.
"Precious" ranks as a compelling as well as gripping cinematic experience with kitchen-sink realism about intolerance. What takes "Precious" to another level of celluloid sophistication is that Daniels takes us into the head of his protagonist, and we see everything from Precious' perspective in terms of her dreams and aspirations. She yearns to have a light-skinned boyfriend, beautiful clothes, and fame. Daniels delivers some incredibly surreal moments. We see Precious' thoughts turned into a movie that she is watching on television, Vittorio De Sica's "Two Women," about Italian refugees during World War II that adds another dimension to her wretched predicament. Apparently, Mary forced Precious to eat food even when she was not hungry. This abuse is alluded to in the movie as Precious sees it from her warped perspective. Another extraordinary scene occurs in Precious' bedroom as she is applying her make-up. The image reflected in the mirror is of a blond poster girl that occupies space on her wall. This ironic poster captures the escapist fantasies that fuel Precious's life and she falls back on to evade the constant harassment of her mother and her ugly physical environment. Musician Lenny Kravitz has a supporting role as Nurse John who takes care of Precious while she is in the hospital. Movies about social workers and the victims of parental abuse will never be the same after "Precious." Who would have thought that such an unrelentingly dire story with a first-time would have the sledgehammer impact that it delivers!
Summary of Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
Precious Jones, an inner-city high school girl, is illiterate, overweight, and pregnant?again. Naïve and abused, Precious responds to a glimmer of hope when a door is opened by an alternative-school teacher. She is faced with the choice to follow opportunity and test her own boundaries. Prepare for shock, revelation and celebration.Not every movie can survive the kind of hype--multiple awards at Sundance and other festivals, rapturous reviews, nominated for six Academy Awards and winner of two, for Best Supporting Actress and Best Screenplay--that greeted the release of Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, but this extraordinary piece of work is more than up to the task. What's particularly notable about the film's success and acclaim is that in the beginning, at least, it presents one of the grimmest scenarios imaginable. The scene is Harlem, New York, in 1987. Teenager Clarisse Precious Jones (played by newcomer Gabourey Sibide in an absolutely fearless performance) is dirt poor, morbidly obese, semiliterate, and pregnant for the second time--both courtesy of her own father (the first baby was born with Down syndrome). Her home life is several levels below Hell, as her bitter, vengeful welfare mother, Mary (Mo'Nique, in a role that has generated legitimate Oscar® buzz), abuses her both physically and otherwise (telling Precious she should have aborted her is only the worst of a relentless flood of insults and vitriol). Yet somehow, the young woman still has hopes and dreams (depicted in a series of delightful fantasy sequences). She enrolls in an alternative school, where a young teacher (Paula Patton) takes her under her wing and even into her home, and visits a social worker (an excellent Mariah Carey; fellow pop star Lenny Kravitz is also effective as a male nurse) who further helps bring Precious out of the darkness. Incredibly, Precious's circumstances deteriorate even more before showing the slightest sign of improvement, and a climactic confrontation with her mother is one of the more wrenching scenes in recent memory. But against all odds, director Lee Daniels, screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher (working from Sapphire's novel), and especially the wondrously affecting Sibide have managed to make Precious a film that will lift the viewer far higher up that one might ever have thought possible. --Sam Graham