Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire (***1/4)

A small film that got a lot of attention after getting noticed at the Sundance Film Festival, this turns out to have a straightforward story whose novelty lies in the scarcity of movies about people like Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), an obese 11^th grader living with her mother in a Harlem apartment, in 1987. It is worth seeing, in part, for that novelty and the good performances, especially by Sidibe and Mo'Nique, as her mother. (Mariah Carey is a pleasant surprise as a social worker, too.) Precious, who is essentially illiterate, has just been placed in an “alternative” education program after getting pregnant, for the second time, by her mother’s boyfriend. The mother character has, essentially, no redeeming features; she is a walking (but mostly sitting and watching television) argument for welfare reform, ordering Precious around like a servant, reacting to her daughter’s rape-induced pregnancy by blaming Precious for stealing her man.

You can watch this movie and get extremely depressed. Precious has nothing good in her life; she has fantasies, but few aspirations and little hope. Or you can watch her, placed with a caring teacher (Paula Patton), and see it as a an inspirational story showing that anyone can be redeemed. (The voiceovers, taking the place of the first-person narrative in the novel, suggest that, at least the illiteracy will be remedied.)

IMDB link

viewed 12/28/13 on Netflix DVD; posted 1/10/14