'Precious' is an unpleasant, yet important, story

When Clareece “Precious” Jones is asked in class to name something she’s good at, she can’t think of anything.

It is at this moment, about halfway through “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire,” that our heart finally goes out to Precious. We know, even if she doesn’t, that she is worth something and that she deserves some kind of chance.

The odds have been against her from the first. She is obese and illiterate, and is roundly berated by the neighborhood boys as well as the girls at school. At 16, she is pregnant with her second child, and the father of both children is her own father. She is regularly abused by her mother, who, rather than blaming the rapist, has the bizarre feeling that her man was “stolen” by her daughter.

She calls Precious fat, worthless and worse.

Did we mention that she is diagnosed as HIV-positive and that her first child, a daughter called Little Mongo, has Down syndrome? 

Before you recoil in a decisive boycott of this movie, be advised that it is difficult to look away from, even if it is highly unpleasant. Perhaps we feel guilty because we don’t often see people like Precious, even though we know they’re out there. (In this case, Harlem in 1987.)

More a character study than a real movie, “Precious” has been hyped by the formidable forces of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. They had nothing to do with the production of the movie, but they agreed to give it support and financial backing after they saw the finished product.

If you have been reading all the Oscar buzz since the Toronto International Film Festival, you may be a little disappointed because the film is too long and fails to establish Precious as the central character who could carry it all.

Gabourey Sidibe, the first-time actress in the title role, has little dialogue and plays most of the film with a persistent, blank expression. She is not the best-actress Oscar possibility the hype had led us to believe.

There is, however, an almost sure-bet Oscar in the offing for this film. The category of best supporting actress looks, at this point, just about sewed up for comedian-turned-tragic-villainess Mo’Nique. As an unbelievably rotten, yet still believable, mother, this usually hilarious comic pulls out all the stops.  We wrote off her performance as rather one-noted evil until she clinched the Oscar with her final scene, in which she tries fitfully to see some way of excusing her cruelty. There is none.

 There are other serviceable, but not award-worthy,  performances. Paula Patton is effective as Blu Rain, the one teacher who helps Precious. Mariah Carey has an unglamorous bit part as a social worker who knows the score. Lenny Kravitz is a nurse who is one of the few people who helps Precious.

Lee Daniels was the producer of “Monster’s Ball,” which brought the Oscar to Halle Berry. His direction here is praiseworthy as much for what it doesn’t do as for what it does. It doesn’t resort to either melodramatics or begging for tears. It presents Precious and her world in an unflinching, uncompromising way.

The real terror here is the rather matter-of-fact way all this poverty, abuse, incest and rape are taken for granted. 

Sapphire is a former teacher, poet and performance artist whose first novel, 1996’s “Push,” told the sordid story of Precious.

You know things are bad when any movie takes seventh-grade reading capability as a happy ending. (And we aren’t even sure if that grade is accurate).

You’ll remember the character Precious long after you’ve forgotten the movie that houses her.

Meanwhile, dust off a golden statuette for Mo’Nique.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com