Precious

Winner of the 2010 Oscars for Best Supporting Actress (for Mo'Nique) and Best Adapted Screenplay, nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (for Lee Daniels), and Best Actress (for newcomer Gabourey Sidibe).

To be honest, this is really not an easy movie to watch. The story that it tells is brutal, bleak, and depressing, filled with overwhelming hopelessness, and every time you think that it couldn't get any worse for the titular character, it does. The superb acting is almost to the film's detriment, as Sidibe is so brave and draws so much sympathy that the viewer just can't stand to see what new outrages lie around the corner for her, and Mo'Nique is so utterly convincing and chilling as the abusive mother that I couldn't help hoping for a scene in which she dies a slow, painful death. I was tempted throughout the film to just stop watching, as it was so difficult to bear witness to one more torment.

Precious tells the story of a sixteen-year-old Harlem girl, completely unable to read, who, at the start of the film, is being kicked out of her high school for being pregnant with her second child, both the result of sexual abuse at the hands of her father. The father only makes occasional appearances to continue that abuse, while Precious' mother (the Oscar-winning Mo'Nique) sits on the couch all day, watching TV, smoking endless cigarettes, and getting her daughter to buy her lotto tickets, get her welfare checks, and cook her dinner (which, if not prepared just right, Precious is forced to eat herself, despite her desire to not be overweight). Precious' first child, a daughter with Down's Syndrome whose vicious name I can't even bring myself to repeat, is pushed off on Precious' grandmother, at her mother's insistence, only brought around for visits when needed to milk more money from the welfare system.

After being removed from her high school, Precious is offered an opportunity to attend an alternative school, where her new classmates and teacher help her to overcome some difficulties and see hope for her future. For every step forward, however, fate has another setback in store for Precious. This film is everything that the condescending The Blind Side tried to be. The Blind Side seems to have the message that a poverty-stricken minority youth can accomplish anything with hard work, perseverance... and the support of an affluent white family. Everything that Precious achieves, she achieves through her own efforts. While Precious is certainly a more challenging viewing experience than The Blind Side, I think that it is worth the effort, and the return on the time-investment is far more worthwhile.