Thoughts on PRECIOUS? — Page 3

I don't agree with any of the alleged flaws mentioned here. I think all of the choices were clear and deliberate.

This film was devastating. A beautiful, haunting, cathartic mirror to some of the worst things happening to children every day in this country. It's absolutely astonishing.

The acting was out of this world good by everyone. Everyone in this film. But, Gabby and Mo'Nique particularly knocked it out of the park and MUST be rewarded with at LEAST nominations. I would argue that they are among the best performances I have ever seen on film.

The hype may ruin this film for some--as hype often does do. But, then again, I feel that it did live up to the hype I had going in.

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I loathe the title of this film. I hope everyone now titles their films with the author's name.

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I believe that they were contractually obligated to include the subtitle "Based on the novel Push by Sapphire".

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JRB_actor - I realize that the observations I've made were more a comment about the flaws in the social system during the 80's, and not so much about the flaws in the movie. And unfortunately a lot of it is accurate like you said. I went in thinking that Mariah was going to be the exception to the norms at the time to help change Precious' life, which is why I was slightly disappointed. Perhaps I should have read the book first. I still think it's a brilliant film, I just wanted so badly for the social work profession to have a more positive light shined on it. I'd have to keep it in mind that it's not that kind of story if I saw it again.

I've enjoyed reading aobut everyone's reaction to the film---the film festival showing here sold out rather quickly, so I have to wait to see it. I'm not paying any attention to the hype, but the article on Lee Daniels in the NYT Magazine a few Sundays ago made me want to see the film. Glad most are liking it.

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Updated On: 11/13/09 at 04:48 PM

Just got home from seeing it and it is really quite powerful. I'm also listening to the audiobook (unabridged) which is a different experience of the same material. It is also excellent.

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Here's an excellent read on the film and it's director from NYT


The Audacity of PRECIOUS

Yeah--Calvin is right. But with the popularity of the book, you can't blame them for the extended title given the situation.

Though at this point, they aren't having problems selling tickets.

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"WICKED based on a musical by Stephen Schwartz based on a novel by Gregory Maguire based on a the film The Wizard of Oz directed by Victor Fleming based on the Oz novels by L. Frank Baum based on the O-Z tab on his file drawer"

Opening December 25th, 2022
In New York and LA.
Additional cities April 1st.

Marquise, that was a terrific article.

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Rich from FourFour reviews the film:

"After its rapturous response on the festival circuit, Precious received something of a backlash as its release approached. There is a certain faction of the critic population that feels it is obvious, emotional porn, which preys on the sympathy of guilty whites. I'm not really interested in picking through the minutiae, but I do wonder what would have made these people happy. (Just not telling this character's story?) Any serious movie about the lives of black people risks a pandering following, but I'm pretty sure that Sapphire didn't write her book for white people. I'm pretty sure that Lee Daniels wasn't thinking, "All my peoples up in Connecticut are going to flip their **** when they catch my Ntozake Shange reference!" I'm pretty sure that the kind of political correctness those are supposedly exhibiting when they gush about Precious is skin-deep, that your average guilty liberal isn't going to marvel at the breadth of representation of women of color that's going on here. I don't remember the last time I saw a movie that offered so many vivid depictions of black women."

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2009/11/we-arent-all-precious.html#more

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Exactly. There was much that I could connect to--even though my life is far better off in so many ways (though there were moments of physical/verbal abuse in my childhood). There was so much humanity fighting to break free in this film.

And, sadly, I knew poor, white girls who were in very similar shoes as Precious while growing up in Texas. In fact, I reconnected with one of them on Facebook this past year. I didn't even know half of what she had endured when we were kids. Thankfully, this girl survived and is now happily married with children.

Despite a richly, specific story, there is universality.

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Thanks Marquise! that was the article I read, and liked it even better the second time around!

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