CINEMA: Precious

When reviewing The Road a few weeks ago, I wondered if any of the other high profile book adaptations coming up this year would be as faithful or as profound.

If anything, Precious is even more breathtaking than The Road and when I say breathtaking I mean it literally – this movie delivers a punch to the solar plexus that will leave you gasping.

Directed by Lee Daniels with spike, grit and no little humour, Precious is the story of Precious Jones (a stunning performance from newcomer Gabourey Sidibe), a grossly overweight, illiterate New York teen. Precious wanders through life friendless, making up for the abuse she suffers at home from both her father and mother (Mo’Nique), and at school from her peers by existing in a fantasy world where she is glamorous, famous and wanted.

That Precious has managed to survive thus far is testament to a spark of determination she manages to keep alive inside even when she’s being jeered at by the local kids, raped by her father, or otherwise physically abused by her equally overweight and troubled mother. Then salvation arrives in the most unlikely form; pregnant with her second child, Precious is referred to a new social worker (Mariah Carey playing plain and straight talking and doing an excellent job of it) and she is assigned to literacy classes with the inspirational Ms Rain (Paula Patton). But this new, hopeful lease of life for Precious provokes a furious response from her mother which will lead to her daughter either finally escaping her clutches or losing everything she has grown to love.

Lee Daniels walks a very precarious line here between showing the abuse of Precious in all its violent intensity (and there are scenes here that are almost unwatchably awful) and being accused of exploitation, or softening the blow and therefore dulling the impact of the film. Instead, he rises to the occasion with courage and a deft touch, infusing the film with real heart and dignity even in the face of appalling degradation.

He is helped no end by a fantastic script (adapted by Geoffrey Fletcher from the novel by Sapphire) and by a mostly female cast that is wonderfully natural and, above all, believable. This is true of (surprisingly) Mariah Carey who really is impressive, but most importantly Gabourey Sidibe who plays Precious as awkward, bolshie, downcast and ultimately transformed; and the fantastic Mo‘Nique, whose selfish, self-pitying mother is a grotesque witch of a woman, refusing to take the blame for her own misfortunes and using her own daughter as the punching bag for her self-loathing, disgust and hate.

If all that makes this film sound like a total downer, it really isn’t – it’s just the most powerfully shocking movie you’ll probably see all year.