Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (review)
What Is a Real Woman?
It’s sorta fascinating and sorta depressing and sorta predictable to see how some are reacting to Precious: It’s racist, they say. It’s exploitive. It’s emblematic of liberal guilt. It’s pornographic. It’s hysterical, even.
Now, I get it: I understand that there’s a huge difference between a story, which is its own thing, and the manner in which that story is told, which can render a story unwatchable or preposterous. And I’ve certainly been on the other side of a critical divide, from which I simply cannot fathom how everyone else, it seems, is seeing something wonderful and noteworthy in a film that looks to me like the most detestable of crap.
I get it.
But in this case, I’m mystified. Because I’m not sure how a story like the one that unfolds in Precious can be anything other than the harrowing, painful, heartbreaking, explicit work that it is. How do we tell a story about the worst that a girl’s experience can be -- raped by her father, emotionally and physically abused by her mother, denigrated or ignored by almost everyone around her, not to mention the entire culture at large, to the point where she has no hope and nothing to live for -- if we’re not upfront about it? What happens to Precious may be extreme in that it will not and has not happened to everyone, not even to most people, but nothing that we see here is unbelievable, unless one wants to deny the hell that some women go through because of the color of their skin, their gender, or the low expectations everyone has for them. Are we simply not supposed to tell some stories because they’re too uncomfortable, or because we don’t want to acknowledge the reality of them, or precisely because they do spring from racism, sexism, and classism?
The “hysterical” comment I mentioned above really rankles, because that’s traditionally been a word used to dismiss women’s experiences. If a woman (or a movie) is “hysterical,” then there’s no need to heed her: she’s just being unreasonable. But it’s hard not to heed Precious -- at least, I found it so -- because she is so genuine, in her pain and in her misery and in the strength that she doesn’t even realize she has. Her real name is Claireece Jones, but everyone calls her Precious, which is a cruel joke, for there is no one who appears to care one whit for her, until she begins attending an “alternative” school, Each One Teach One, where her teacher (Paula Patton: Swing Vote, Deja Vu) is kind to her, which seems like something out of a fairy tale after what we’ve seen of Precious’s life to that point, so rife with dismal everyday horrors as it is.
While the film is told, almost relentlessly so, through Precious’s wounded gaze, anyone watching should have a greater perspective than she does: She may not understand why she’s being suspended from school merely for being pregnant (for the second time, by her father), but we understand that in 1987 Harlem (and other places), pregnant teens are so routine that her school is exasperated in dealing with them -- it appears not to cross anyone’s mind that the sex that got Precious pregnant may not have been consensual, or else no one cares if that may have been the case -- even if the response is equally exasperating to anyone with a real sense of what it might take to discourage young women from having babies before they’re ready. Precious may not find it strange that she is unable to read, at age 16 and regularly promoted in school, even if she is still in junior high; but we know this happens as a matter of course.
This isn’t movie-of-the-week stuff, with a plucky heroine and a happy ending. It is not sentimental, and nothing about it is sugar-coated: that would be the stuff of liberal guilt, if it attempted to assuage us that all the terrible things that can happen aren’t so bad after all, because the human spirit can nevertheless triumph over it. (Precious has spirit, but if there’s anything triumphant about how her story ends, it’s a very small, very survival-minded sort of triumph.) If a fairly straight-up, straightforward depiction of Precious’s hellish life is “pornographic” or “racist,” then surely it is more pornographic and racist that this all actually occurs in the real world? Maybe the film is is emblematic of liberal guilt... but then, are we not supposed to tell stories we should be ashamed of for fear of feeling guilty about them, when feeling guilty is not at all an inappropriate response?
None of that, however, makes Precious anything less than real: the culture she is steeped in may drive her, say, to see a pretty blond girl instead of her own self when she looks in the mirror, or to want a boyfriend who is “light-skinned,” but are those not honest reactions to everything she sees around her, everything she is subjected to? A more supportive, more loving environment may have given her the resources she needed to be able to reject the bullshit her culture has foisted on her, but when the nicest thing her mother, Mary (Mo’Nique: Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Phat Girlz), can call her is “dumb bitch,” Christ, shouldn’t we be surprised that Precious is able to muster what meager resources she can? (And shouldn’t we be able to see that Mary is, alas, a reaction to the abuse she has suffered as well? Mary is horrific, and she’s unforgivable -- particularly in her final scene, which should put paid to any doubts that this former standup comic can really act -- but she is the product, too, of a world that does not value women, or black people, or poor people.)
Transgressing boundaries deemed appropriate is typically what got women labeled “hysterical” in the past, and I wonder if the same dynamic is not at work here. Director Lee Daniels -- working from the novel Push, by Sapphire [Amazon U.S.] [Amazon U.K.], and a script by Geoffrey Fletcher -- dares to give us a sympathetic heroine in Precious, even though she is obese, very dark-skinned, and massively depressed (for very good reasons). In an entertainment culture where crap like Women in Trouble -- in which beautiful women, for very narrow definitions of “beautiful,” strip down to their lingerie and talk about sexually pleasuring men -- is offered as an authentic and honest depiction of women, Gabourey Sidibe, and her Precious, are the real thing. Interviews and red-carpet photos readily demonstrate that Sidibe herself is gorgeous and bubbly and confident -- but here, where she’s, you know, acting, she is perpetually downcast, her face burrowed into a relentless frown: why does she have to be such a downer? some are wondering.
But Sidibe is not a cover girl playing “ugly” -- as, alas, Mariah Carey (Glitter) does here, frumped up as a social worker; her performance is fine, but the gimmick of it is a tad distracting. She is a real woman -- Sidibe is in her mid 20s -- and a real actor portraying a character. It disheartens me, but does not surprise me, that so many can fail to see even that meta aspect of this frank and unembellished film. The full breadth of what constitutes authentic womanhood is so unseen on film -- from Hollywood studios and indie filmmakers alike -- that when something like Precious comes along and falls outside the constricted standard, it isn’t even recognized for what it is.
viewed at a private screening with an audience of criticsrated R for child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive language
official site | IMDB | trailer | more reviews at MRQE
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comments
posted by ajphux (Fri Nov 13 09, 7:16PM)
MaryAnn, let me be the first to say this is a terrific review. You've addressed so many attitudes that this film brings out in people. Thank you for adding some wonderful rationality to the discussion. I've been looking forward to this movie since it made the rounds at film festivals. I know it will be a tough watch, but the story it tells needs to be told. Thanks for an even-handed, thoughtful review.
posted by Accounting Ninja (Fri Nov 13 09, 7:29PM)
I'm so grateful that you reviewed Precious and Women in Trouble at the same time, so we can see the contrast. Was this on purpose?
posted by j (Fri Nov 13 09, 9:47PM)
Read the book! Somtime movies and book bring humanity to a crule and cold world. Painful story but envokes open discusion of pain that is real
posted by MaryAnn (Fri Nov 13 09, 10:47PM)
Not really. Just happy coincidence.
posted by JoshB (Sat Nov 14 09, 12:52AM)
I think the criticism is that this story is not real. It's like 24, a ludicrously stacked worst case scenario. Or so I gather, as I have not seen it.
This is the only coherent paragraph in Armond White's customarily overwritten review:
In any case, I'm curious to see it now.
posted by Der Bruno Stroszek (Sat Nov 14 09, 5:17AM)
I haven't seen the film yet either - not out in my country for a while yet - but that paragraph makes me wonder who gets to decide which depictions of African-American life are or are not 'real'.
I mean, Armond White leads a life which most black people in America won't recognise, if only because most people (of any race) don't work as film critics - but he gets to decide that Lee Daniels, Oprah Winfrey, Mo'Nique and all the other black people who worked on this film (not to mention Sapphire, the source author who based her novel on stories she'd heard from friends and acquaintances) are Being Black Wrong? Why is that?
Another issue it raises: what's so great about being 'realistic'? I remember when Gaspar Noe's Irreversible was at Cannes, Noe described it as a kind of horror movie influenced by Expressionist cinema at first. But as soon as the attacks started flying, everyone reverted to type: "Noe is showing real life! You critics in your ivory towers can't handle the truth!" But he wasn't, and they could. If Lee Daniels had come out and said he sees Precious as a Grand Guginol horror film, would it be any better or any worse?
posted by Kate (Sat Nov 14 09, 8:35AM)
This is one of your best reviews, period.
I can't wait to see this film.
posted by MaryAnn (Sat Nov 14 09, 9:24AM)
Yes, that has been the root of many of the complaints, and of course it's no defense to say that Sapphire based her novel on real girls she met as a teacher in Harlem, because truth is not the same thing as plausibility in a fictional narrative.
But I don't think it's fair to liken the movie to a *24*-style worst-case scenario -- *Precious* is not packed with one wildly unlikely event after another. It's packed with a series of very real things that happen to real girls and women all the time. And even if *Precious* adds up to a worst-case scenario, even *that* is still a not-uncommon one (unlike a *24* worse-case scenario).
I think we've already come to the conclusion that Armond White is a professional troll, but since he's not actually here, I'll take the chance on feeding him:
Wow. Way to stereotype the white folks. Sense of superiority? Relief? That's nothing at all like what I felt, watching the film. (Hey, but maybe I conned myself into believing that.)
Oh, and, way to stereotype the black folks, too:
All black people think like Armond White?
Is there only one kind of black American life?
Perhaps White is under the mistaken impression that *Precious* is meant to be a generalized depiction of "black American life." As far as I can see, it's an intimate depiction of one girl's life. Yes, she is black, and that impacts much of what her life is, but for anyone to extrapolate this to encompass the experience of everyone who is black in America is ridiculous. No one is doing that, and you'd have to be a moron to think this movie is attempting that.
Then again, White is a troll, and likely does not believe most of what he's saying.
posted by unseen (Sun Nov 15 09, 9:54AM)
I just came from the movie and I want to address the reality aspect. I agree with the review for it is indeed a very real portrayal of abuse. I know many precious and though it was hard to watch, it wasn't as bad. Precious had it good. At sixteen she knew who the evil people in her life were. The lack of education and sophistication of her tormentors made it easy for her to get up and leave...and with hope. There are women out there born into abusive households, abused since three until twenty thirty forty because the evil abusers use their education and sophisticated methods to create crazymaking. Let me say that when a single fifty year old woman tells you she spends holidays with her abusive parents because yeah they abused her but they also paid for her medical school, or helped her buy her home or took her on a safari you know how someone is made crazy. There is some abuse that is indeed irreparable and one just hopes that the crazys died all single and childless.
posted by lunarangel01 (Sun Nov 15 09, 3:02PM)
Having worked in social services, I can tell you that, quite honestly and sadly, true "stacked scenarios" are more common than you might think (and they are absolutely terrifying and heartbreaking). It's like that quote: "Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense." True victimization of a person is often recurrent and it doesn't always make sense. In most fiction movies there does have to be that nice little tie up at the end where the protagonist leaves the situation, but in reality that isn't always what happens.
In any case, I haven't seen the movie, but it definitely sounds like something that I want to see. Thanks for the great review MaryAnn.
posted by MaryAnn (Sun Nov 15 09, 6:15PM)
That's sort of the nature of such abuse, though, isn't it? Abused people turn around and become abusers themselves; and abused people often don't understand that the abuse they suffered is not normal, which makes them vulnerable to further abuse. It's a self-perpetuating cycle for some people (not everyone).
That is true. Still, the fictional story of Precious is not nonsensical: it works as a story, too. At least for me.
posted by Shreck (Mon Nov 16 09, 2:19AM)
I also want to thank you MaryAnn. After talking with my wife we're going to make an effort to see this movie, though we'd not heard of it before reading this review. I'm not sure if it will have a positive impact on me or not, whether I'll ever be able to do anything with that positive impact, or even if I'll make it through the film. I do know that if this film is as, well, "real" as you describe it that it will become a strong recommendation for my circle of friends.
I think of myself as understanding and empathetic and able to relate to any situation but the reality is that I really am the "superior" white film habitué that has been alluded to. Any chance I get to break down that glass wall I will take.
I'm not looking forward to it. I really do hope this movie can affect change.
Shreck
posted by CB (Mon Nov 16 09, 5:01PM)
I was going to write that it seemed to me, intuitively, that these kinds of circumstances would naturally tend to 'stack', because one bad circumstances creates the environment in which more can occur, which then enables further abuse. I mean, how likely does it sound that a girl could be a victim of repeated incest, but nothing else in her life is wrong? That she could have a mother who was normal, instead of herself so abused and low in self-esteem that she can project it onto her daughter and allow the abuse to continue? That her school wasn't so uncaring that they would never even notice something was wrong, much less find out why and call Child Protective Services? It's possible, but it actually seems less likely to me.
It just seems like for people in bad circumstances, there's rarely only one or a few things wrong. It's many things that maybe started from one, but snowballed.
Thank you for validating that view with reality, though this is another case I'm not happy that my intuition is correct.
But for the naysayers, I don't think this is a case of "Truth is stranger than fiction". I think it's a case of "Truth is stranger than some sheltered, privileged person's self-serving imagination of what truth is".
These people are experiencing the opposite of liberal guilt: "I don't know about it, therefore it doesn't happen, therefore your showing me this thing is an underhanded attempt to make me feel bad about something that doesn't happen, therefore I'm offended."
posted by whatfun (Mon Nov 16 09, 9:09PM)
I want to thank you for a thoughtful and probing review. I work in the medical profession and can say with complete certainty that there are real-life stories just as bad (and in some ways, worse) as this story.
I would ask anyone that doubts the real-life relevance of this movie and its story to do something selfless and volunteer for others in a similar situation. Be a big brother/sister, tutor a child, volunteer at a clinic or shelter. Maybe many people in my generation (i'm in my 20's) are so selfish and cynical that they don't care to confront such stories, or even conceive them as possible.
posted by Lisa (Tue Nov 17 09, 5:37PM)
Great review.
Without having seen it, I volunteer at a suicide hotline and it's not so unusual or "a ludicrously stacked worst case scenario".