*SEE MOVIE TRAILER AT THE END OF THIS POST*Precious
starring Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe, MO'Nique, Paula Patton and Mariah Carey.
directed by Lee Daniels
with executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry
This film is based on the novel Push written by African-American author, Sapphire. This is an emotionally gripping story of a young black teenage girl living in Harlem. She has been abused in more ways one could imagine by the very people who were suppose to love and take care of her. Her life is hard, however, she finds solace in a program that is geared to help troubled teen girls finish school and find a new direction in life. This young girl soon finds, from her teacher, classmates, social workers and others around her, that there are people who love and care about her and through it all she finds enough to love herself and her children.
This movie is a tear jerker. I mean, enough to jerk the eyeballs out the socket! I could sit here and type all night about this film and I still would not express everything this movie made me feel. This is a straight no chaser kind of film. Gabourey Sidibe is wonderful! She played her character very well. It was believable. Every aspect of this film was believable. Though, the subject matter was hard to digest, it tells a story of many young girls. Girls who suffer and continue to suffer physical, sexual and emotional abuse. I'm not mad at all about it.
There was no glamour in this film. No make-up or Maybeline! Never saw Mariah look that "plain Jane" before! Although, Paula Patton needed no make-up and I'm sure her hubby Robin Thicke is not complaining! MO'Nique! She played the crazy, emotionally umbalanced, bitter mother. She did her thing! As a matter of fact, everytime I saw her on the screen she made my stomach hurt!
This film will take you through every emotion imaginable. Even though this is a serious drama, there are some light-hearted moments that will make you chuckle and laugh. Plus, Lenny Kravitz made me want to get back into nursing sick people! Lee Daniels brought the same fire as he brought to Monster's Ball, which earned Halle Barry an Oscar win! Maybe, there's another one here? I don't know but his directing in this film was phenomenal! I loved it. I am already planning to see it a second time.
If you have seen this movie, tell us what you think! Post your comment.
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I went for the second time today! I enjoyed it much better with a smaller audience. I am most proud of the performance given by Gabby S. She brought Precious to life with pain, pride, and dignity. In an hour and 45 minutes Precious went from victim to hero. From 'challenged' to a capable intelligent young lady. Love it and hope that it's message is taken serious and will open dialogue between mothers, daughters, nieces, sisters, and friends.
ReplyDeleteWell, where do I begin?( ..and don't say at the beginning,LOL!)
ReplyDelete"Precious" is NOT a movie everyone is ready for, I thought I was and though I knew it would be a tear-jerker I wasn't expecting it to settle into my spirit(a week later ad it's still there) For starters we hadn't planned on seeing it opening night but see it the next day, instead as fate would have it;there we were destined to have a romantic evening ruined,LOL!
But it's a truly a 'need-to-see' movie, so I got over it.
Mo'Nique commanded each scene she was in. She had the whole audience cringing like it was our fragile self-esteems she was eroding, our @ss she was beatin' and cussin' out! I don't know what dark place Mo' went to as an actress to summon forth that monster she portrayed , but she was GOOD!..good and EVIL. Physically and verbally she embodied the worst of any stereotype or real Black mother ever witnessed on film.
"Precious", the title character was masterfully played by new-comer Gabourey a.k.a "Gabby" who should be included in any Oscar buzz that inevitably will surround this movie. Precious has a baby-faced,smooth prettiness that's hard to see at first. Naturally, it's easier to focus on her sizable girth, the darkness of her skin and other hallmarks of Black oppression that make her seem unattractive and hence undesirable...and that's REAL TALK for you. You've got Mo'Nique's character smeared with skin lightening cream ( and looking crazy),Precious hallucinating herself as a slim,White girl in her mirror..these are not my personal issues but I recognize them as all-too familiar symptoms of Black self-hate.
The mom hated herself, the dad as well..and TOGETHER they abused their only daughter.
Sad but REAl, brutally real.
Fortunately there are other less intense, more up beat characters providing either sympathy ( in the case of her teacher, the male nurse, the social worker) OR comic relief( some of her more "over-the-top" classmates that brighten up this very,very dark movie. I was overjoyed to finally stop pitying her and root her on as a survivor!!! (and boy, does she ever,... YAY!)
I must admit that I was little peeved at the ending( if you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it for you)but I was like "D@YUMMM, Precious can't catch a break, can she?". It seemed almost melodramatic that after all she had been through ,she and the audience would be denied our 'silver-cloud lining' but hey, real life doesn't give us a happy ending always does it? Why should "Precious" be any different....especially since Lee Daniels directed it. That brutha' is on some next level raw-sh#t with his creative visions; makes you wonder what HIS childhood was like.....Hmmmm,LOL!
Loved it and I will see it again.
Lena HJ
A few friends and I went to check out Precious Saturday Nite. Having heard plenty of buzz about the film, the director, debut actress Gabourey 'Gabby' Sidibe and Mo'Nique, I, like many other movie goers, wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Additionally, being a fan of poet and author Sapphire (who wrote PUSH, the book the movie was based on), I would have gone if for no other reason than to support this talented black lesbian artist.
ReplyDeleteAnd at this point, I must digress to ask a question. What is it with the film industry community that seems to refuse to give props to the writers that give the directors the material to cinematically portray? Are writer's distancing themselves from film they don't feel do their work justice, or are they simply being ignored? I can count how many times I've heard Alice Walker's name in connection with The Color Purple. Spielberg however...... one would have thought - wrote the book or worse, there's was no book, the entire movie was 'his' original concept. Pardon the digression....guess I needed to get that one off ;)
Like the book, the movie was quite dark, darker even. Honestly, I hadn't yet left the theater before I found myself fighting depression. Yes, I know, sadly, this is the story of all too many young black women in our community. Though, like many of us who have read a book prior to seeing a film, I was disappointed by scenes I felt the director spent way too much time on as well as those which were not captured. Is there anyone out there who hasn't read the book that knows who the light skinned boy she kept fantasizing about was and why he was an integral part of her happy hallucinations? Probably not.
The book of course, explains this. The book's ending did not leave readers with the lack of closure the film did. It wasn't some fluffy happy ending, but it did explore Precious' empowerment via her ridding herself of her mother's toxicity, bonding with her children, delaying her graduation to cement the bond with her teacher and eventually continuing her education.
I saw this film in Gastonia at The Movies. I'm certain the atmosphere in the small theater, which was about a third full of mostly black folks had an equally depressing impact on my experience. There were two separate groups of teens and tweens (one of which I'm certain were accompanied by an adult) in the theater with us. Well, with each ill placed giggle or burst of laughter (including the scenes when Precious falls to the ground face first after being pushed by a group of harassing young men, and the one when Mo'Nique is at the social worker's office explaining her hatred for the daughter she allowed her boyfriend/baby daddy to continuously rape and impregnate) I felt my heart being ripped out that much more. Ripped out with the thought of how our young community could find anything about abuse and degradation humorous or amusing. Ripped up by the parents who seemed not to address or attempt to control the sad and disruptive behavior. Sad that some of those kids may have occasionally giggled out of their sheer discomfort of a topic that certainly needs discussing and addressing more frequently ,more vigilantly, more candidly, more lovingly. To that end, nope, I wouldn't go see it again, but am sincerely grateful for the dialogue it may encourage. And hopeful that we wake up and realize that "what goes on in our house does not stay in our house", it leaves, goes to school, has babies, finds jobs, sometimes ends up in penal facilities and continues cycles of dysfunction that make the one in four stat of women sexually abused prior to their 18th birthday a reality we so desperately need to make a thing only read about or seen in the movies.