RAGTAG FAMILY The girls in the film’s alternative school manage to reach out beyond their cultural stereotypes to build a supportive family unlike any Precious has ever known.
Words Hurt. A lot.
Precious features outstanding performances from its cast, and a vision from director Lee Daniels that welds ambiguity together with possibility. Mo’Nique’s turn as Precious’ mother, Mary, feels heart-breakingly authentic. She demonstrates just how powerful, how dangerous, how painful the infliction of mere words can be.
And you see this throughout the movie: Words hurt. A lot. Even in the refuge of the alternative school Precious attends after she’s expelled for her second pregnancy by her father, the other girls in her class regularly smack each other with language.
But their teacher, Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) teaches the girls how uplifting words can be when paired with compassion and concrete actions. Ms. Rain never gives up on Precious, exhorting her, “Write!” even through the girl’s tears when she’s confronted by devastating news about her future.
Indeed, one of the strongest messages in Precious is its portrayal of the girls coming together to create their own kind of family. Their scene in the hospital after Precious gives birth is a perfectly realistic high point in the film, and offers Lenny Kravitz up as Nurse John, who becomes Precious’ truest male friend, and there is a dearth of that kind of man in this film.
Nurse John (played by musician Lenny Kravitz) becomes the kind of man Precious has never before encountered — a true friend.
The film does a nice aside in its depiction of Ms. Rain’s home life when she and her lesbian lover offer Precious kindness and temporary shelter; they treat the girl with a dignity she’s never experienced and never talk down to her. This forces Precious to confront her own homophobia.
“Together, these homo ladies talk like TV channels I don’t watch,” she says. ”Mama say homos is bad peoples … But homos not who rape me, homos not who let me sit up in school 16 years and learn nuffin and homos not sell crack to peoples in Harlem.”
A social worker, Mrs. Weiss, in an amazing, unexpected portrayal by Mariah Carey, brings things to a head when Mary claims she wants to be reunited with Precious. In this illuminating “Anatomy of a Scene,” produced by the New York Times, director Daniels describes what went into this wrenching, pivotal scene where Mrs. Weiss brings Precious and Mary together to confront the abuse at the center of the relationship.
I saw this movie with a cynical social worker friend who was moved to tears by this scene’s absolute authenticity.
At one point, Precious tells the social worker — and by extension, the audience — “You can’t handle this.” And maybe she’s right. But as evil as you may want to paint Precious’ family, what you ultimately walk away with is the realization that while victimhood is a powerful ingredient in the complicated recipe for abuse, it can also serve up a helping of hope.
Precious performs in “one of them BET videos” in one of the fantasies that helps her survive her abuse.
EXTRA Here’s a link to the screenplay (PDF) for the film.
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