Typically, obesity, illiteracy, rape, child abuse, pedophilia, and incest that results in two children for a sixteen year old girl wouldn’t even warrant a viewing and would be automatically categorized as poverty-porn designed to hyperbolically inflict guilt on the white majority in a liberal-capitalist society—see Crash.
However, Precious conveys this glut of disturbing elements without diving into absurdity. Precious is the heart-wrenching, yet delicate story of Claireece “Precious” Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old Harlem resident who has two children from multiple incestuous encounters with her father.
Much of the film is sublimated by the performances—particularly Mo’Nique, who plays Mary Jones, Precious’ mother who manipulates the welfare system so that she might continue to stagnantly inhabit her television-facing barcalounger without interruption while Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) fills the Cinderellaesque role of maid and caretaker to the rage-prone, iron-skillet wielding Mary. Make no mistake, Mary is cruel and completely abhorrent, but unlike a number of similar characters, Mo’Nique does not portray her as a caricature pining for third-act vindication and audience love. Instead, the third act closes, and the sympathy some may feel for Mary is outweighed by the churning cesspool that is her conscience.—which is what separates Precious from run-of-the mill poverty-porn.
I can’t assert that Precious contains no social message. There is clear, cutting commentary on the inadequacies of the education system that has allowed Precious to slip through the cracks for the better part of eleven years before expelling her for being pregnant with her second child. That said, Precious addresses this issue tactfully. In the sole public-school classroom scene, the teacher does not lose control a la Dangerous Minds, but it is apparent that the teacher is resigned to the presumed failure of his students, reciting, monotonous, rhetorical jargon—“homework is a requirement, not a request.” While this might be catchy, it has no apparent influence over the students, and the teacher seems rather apathetic to their ambivalence.
Precious also avoids following paths trampled by Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers in that it doesn’t invoke the good-natured, white-savior trope to rescue Precious from her seemingly insurmountable circumstances. While Mrs. Lichtenstein, the guidance counselor, pulls Precious out of class and informs her about “Each One Teach One,” a program that provides reading and writing skills to at-risk youths, she shouldn’t be seen as a gracious savior. Yes, she does something noble by encouraging Precious to choose “alternative education,” but Precious is in this situation because she had been ignored for most of her adolescence. If nothing else, Mrs. Lichtenstein’s main priority is to sweep a pregnant teenager out of the public school system and alleviate themselves of the responsibility.
Cynical, yes, but it’s a cynical movie.
Through “Each One Teach One,” and a shoulder-clenching, neck cringing confrontation with Mary after the birth of Precious’ second child, Precious discovers potential purposes, desires and dreams that are not impelled by the aesthetically-driven television images that serve as an alternate reality for Precious—she often imagines herself as a character while being raped and abused—and Mary—a white-resenting woman who simultaneously tries to emulate the white aesthetic with her outfits, wig styles and makeup.
In a way, the use of television and media are reminiscent to James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues when the unnamed narrator observes “the two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies”—the perceived escape to an unattainable reality.
Perhaps the most compelling thing about Precious is that director Lee Daniels offers a glimpse at the life of an individual, not society in general. And while society could be blamed for her situation, that seems too pedantic an interpretation. If Daniels intended to comment on society as a whole, Precious would have found kindred spirits who suffer the same evil afflictions. Although she finds camaraderie with her “Each One Teach One” classmates, we don’t know their backstories, and none of them look remotely like Precious; instead, they have their own intimated issues.
Refreshingly, Precious does not end with a dynamite-blast-crescendo that eradicates these sedimentary layers of abuses and deprecations; Precious remains damaged. And while we have hope that she will pull herself away from her suffocating situation, Precious is not tied up in a neat little bow that preaches the power of positive thinking. Rather, it offers hope for salvation that resides miles and miles away.
DYL MAG Score: 7.5
