LIFE’S A BITCH … and then you try. An illuminating performance by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe in the movie Precious traces a path an abused inner-city girl may follow to reclaim her own life.
We’re supposed to be inspired by films about resilient inner-city children who surmount the obstacles of their lives — poverty, physical and sexual abuse, illiteracy, the shackles of welfare — and certainly that’s the proposition of the film, Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.
But inspiration isn’t what you leave this film feeling. What distinguishes Precious is its ability to draw you in because of the expectations you’re likely to bring into the theater and then push them aside, sometimes violently and sometimes with a measure of sudden grace.
The film’s trailer certainly sets up the gloom you expect from this type of story, but the film itself subverts it through a set of fantasy sequences that are a two-edged sword for Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe). Her fantasy life helps her survive the depraved abuse she suffers at home but it also threatens to keep her from grabbing what few opportunities life tries to hand her.
This is not a feel-good movie. Blind Side is a feel-good movie with a tidy happy ending. Set in 1987 Harlem, Precious will make you feel a little dirty before you are allowed to wring a tiny, yet valuable, drop of refined hope from the raw and crude morass that is the life of its main character. Precious’ happiness is in no way guaranteed, and doom hangs in the air even at the film’s end.
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