Precious Review

I've been waiting three months for the chance to see this film. I was really worried that I'd miss my chance, but it was perhaps divine providence that it happened to be playing last night, the night before the Oscars. After seeing it I can proudly say that this is one of the best films of the year, and has a better shot at Best Picture than most of the other films nominated. It's a grim, emotional masterpiece set within the world we live. It's a film that reduced me to tears on multiple occasions during and after the film, which is no easy feat.

Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire is about Claireece Precious Jones (Portrayed by Gabourey Sidibe), an overweight, illiterate, and abused african-american girl who is pregnant for the second time by her father. She has big dreams like any teenage girl, but is constantly told by her endlessly abusive mother, Mary Jones (played by Monique) that she is worthless, and meaningless. Through the help of a teacher at an alternative school (Paula Patton), her fellow classmates, and a social worker (Mariah Carey) she starts down a road to improving her life for herself and her children.
Precious herself is a fascinating person, who despite the hardships of life tries to look on the brighter side. Arguably the best visual motif in the film is of the title character looking in the mirror at a skinny, blonde, white version of herself. It's one of the saddest moments in the film, and it's the moment you really start to get what kind of person she is. She looks in the mirror at the beauty she wishes she could have, and as the film moves forward that vision washes away until by the end she sees the beauty in herself.

The acting in the film is of an extremely high class. There wasn't a moment in the film in which I thought that the characters weren't real. Gabourey Sidibe makes you fall into an unconditional love with Precious that you usually reserve to your best friends and family members. Mariah Carey takes off the makeup and more than shows her prowess as an actress. As for Monique's performance, it really is all that it's been hyped up to be. She puts up enough raw emotion in the final scene to halfway make you forgive half the horrible things she's done. Mary Jones is ultimately not a villain. She's a flawed person; a victim of circumstance and she doesn't deal with it very well. Every way of man is right in his own eyes, and in the final scene, though we may not agree with her, she provides the honest reason why she did what she did. My Grade for this film is A.