There’s a scene in Wim Wender’s great film Wings of Desire in which Peter Falk, on a break from shooting a movie in Berlin, sketches one of the extras while in internal monologue, philosophizes about how the world is so filled with extra people.
Somewhere within the logic of this sad and poetic scene lies the power and intrigue of Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. Precious is a black, poor, overweight, illiterate girl, pregnant for the second time by her father. Were someone to pass her on the street they’d think no more of her than being some fat, dumb, ignoramus, too stupid to do anything in life but sit at home and abuse the welfare system with her deadbeat mother. Because in truth, the simple fact is that everyone who doesn’t live within one's own personal social circle is just an extra person in life - another nobody not special enough to care much about.
The brilliance of Precious then, right down to the symbolic implications of it’s main character’s name, is to take its audience not only deep within the world of this extra person, but inside her head as well, to show that, no matter the social or emotional conditions a person is raised under, there is in fact something special, something wonderful, something absolutely invaluable in everyone. Amanda Marshall once sang that everybody had a story that could break your heart. That could have been this film’s tag line.
Gabby Sidibe as Precious
The physical film is then the most unlikely of underdog success stories. The entire emotional crux is placed on the shoulders of Gabby Sidibe, an overweight black girl with no formal film experience, and also stars annoying, loud-mouthed comedian Mo’Nique as Precious’ abusive mother who is memorizing every time she steps on screen and has a moment late in the film of such emotional depth that it alone will ensure her an Oscar nomination, and Mariah Carey, surprisingly tough and honest as a social worker who cares about Precious.
The film was also directed by Lee Daniels whose pompous, ridiculous debut film Shadowboxer provided no indication that he had a film of such power and emotional resonance in him. To top it off, the film was funded after the fact by hack filmmaker Tyler Perry who could only dream of making a film as honest and touching as this one.
The power of the film lies in how it not only shows Precious’ day-to-day life as the sixteen-year-old takes abuse from her mother who puts on a façade for her social worker in order to avoid having to get a job, struggles to learn to read and, in a scene of startling horror, finds out something not to be given away, but how it also shows the process that goes on inside Precious’ head as she barely copes with her miserable life.
She is seen imaging that she is a famous dancer or movie star that everyone waits for alongside the red carpet just to catch a glimpse of her, until she is jolted back to reality by flying glasses, thrown at her head by an irate mother who constantly reminds her of how stupid she is and how she had best forget about school and go line up at the welfare office because that is the best she can ever hope for.
Along the way, Precious meets a teacher Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) who provides the film’s life and joy as she genuinely begins to care about her because she sees not only the pain, but the potential within this girl who has never been given a chance in life to show it. And she’s right: although Precious is seen stealing a bucket a chicken from a local restaurant, the film is wise to not pass judgment. The act itself is wrong, but the motivation is one of pure endurance. This is survival of the fittest at its most harrowing.
Precious: Not a Tragedy
Precious is, of course, not an easy film to watch, but if such a description has made it seem like a tragedy, it is not. It is instead, in the end, an uplifting story of how one young woman, always beaten down, never catching a break, uses her imagination, the care of the Patton and Carey characters and her love of her children mixed with a desire to raise them properly in order to, not so much escape, but deal with the hand she has been dealt in the only way she knows how to: to keep on living.
The brilliance of Gabby Sibide’s performance and Lee Daniel’s direction is that they work to convey a strong sense of how this is not simply the story of a girl named Precious, but the story of every girl, living in the ghetto, struggling to get by with whatever little means they can muster. There is nothing inherently special about Precious, she is certainly just one of those extra people; in the film’s most heartbreaking scene, when asked what she does best by Ms. Rain, she replies, “Nothing.” Except, she forgets that she is alive, and has dreams, and desires to, if not to be famous, than simply succeed at getting by.
These things are for more than nothings. In a way, when one zooms out and looks at life as a whole, everyone is just sort of an extra person. That’s why films like Precious are so moving: they remind people that if someone would take time enough to realize, Precious is everyone because, in turn, in maybe even the smallest of ways, everyone is precious.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Mike Lippert - I am 22 years old and am currently living in the small town of Walkerton Ontario. I Spent fours years at Wilfed Laurier University in ...
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