'Precious' is an important film, a social document, driven by its gritty style.
Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (2009)
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Reviews Counted:124
Fresh:113
Rotten:11
Average Rating:7.8/10
Consensus: Precious is a grim yet ultimately triumphant film about abuse and inner-city life, largely bolstered by exceptional performances from its cast.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive language
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Nov 6, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $21,403,249
Synopsis:
Lee Daniels’s PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL “PUSH” BY SAPPHIRE is a vibrant, honest and resoundingly hopeful film about the human capacity to grow and overcome.
Set in Harlem in 1987, it is...
Lee Daniels’s PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL “PUSH” BY SAPPHIRE is a vibrant, honest and resoundingly hopeful film about the human capacity to grow and overcome.
Set in Harlem in 1987, it is the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), a sixteen-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo’Nique), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write.
Precious may sometimes be down, but she is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities exist for her. Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. Precious doesn’t know the meaning of “alternative,” but her instincts tell her this is the chance she has been waiting for. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination.
In Official Selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival - Un Certain Regard, and winner of three awards at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL ‘PUSH’ BY SAPPHIRE stars Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd, Lenny Kravitz and introducing Gabourey Sidibe.
Lionsgate in association with Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry present A Lee Daniels Entertainment / Smokewood Entertainment Group Production of PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL ‘PUSH’ BY SAPPHIRE, directed by Lee Daniels from a screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher based on the novel Push by Sapphire. --© Lionsgate
Starring: Gabourey "Gabbie" Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Lenny Kravitz
Starring: Gabourey "Gabbie" Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd
Director: Lee Daniels
Director: Lee Daniels
Screenwriter: Damien Paul
Producer: Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness, Gary Magness
Composer: Mario Grigorov
Studio: Lions Gate Films
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Reviews for Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire
Features a fiercely intelligent performance by newcomer Sidibe and a compassionate eye for the circumstances surrounding the protagonist's upbringing.
A vitally honest and emotionally compelling film that hits you in the gut.
The 2009 release least likely to be mistaken for the 'feel-good movie of the year.'
Most tragedies provide a final act of catharsis. All Precious has to offer is more and more malice.
The acting is stupendous and rises above the material. An almost unrecognizable Mariah Carey appears in a supporting role as a welfare counselor.
After the first fantasy pop-up scene, each one that followed pulled me away from the emotional impact of the film.
A shriller, more mannered actress may have tilted this into camp. Sidibe doesn´t allow that to happen.
Sapphire's story and the film's performances are powerful enough to compensate for Daniels' miscalculations and phony tricks.
It has been interesting to watch the reactions to Precious, based on whether one sees the film as emotional, political or sociological. Above all, it's a good story, well told.
If you do watch -- and you certainly should -- you will see one of the most remarkable performances ever set to film, given by Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe.
It melodramatizes everything and yet its overall effect is something more than melodrama.
Mo'Nique plunges headfirst into a moral abyss that makes her frightening.
The movie soars on the cast's brilliance at transforming the characters from monsters and victims into repositories of pride and battlers for turf.
Both the character and the movie overcome their handicaps to become the kind of success stories that the American mythmaking machinery loves to love.
Sidibe's on-screen transformation is utterly believable and almost magical ... It's like watching a tiny flower grow in the merest crack on a dead-end highway: It could get crushed any minute.
Recommending "Precious" proves challenging, regardless of the film's quality. ... But to skip it would mean missing some fantastic performances.
Gabourey Sidibe brilliantly embodies the understandably bitter Precious, who shares her heartbreaking despair through extensive narration.
The picture painted by director Lee Daniels is almost unbearably bleak, but it feels completely honest. It's indeed relentless, but also transfixing and ultimately transformative.
The likes of Dante Aligheri, Hieronymus Bosch, Goya and James Joyce have tried to represent Hell in their works, but I’m not sure that any has conveyed the reality of damnation more fully than this brave little film.
Latest News for Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by...
November 05, 2009:
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October 22, 2009:
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Paula Wagner has been quiet since leaving United Artists last year, but she's ready to resurface -- and she wants her next project to be a film adaptation of "Miss Saigon" with... More...
October 13, 2009:
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October 02, 2009:
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