{"id":6581,"date":"2009-12-25T14:51:24","date_gmt":"2009-12-25T22:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=6581"},"modified":"2009-12-25T19:20:19","modified_gmt":"2009-12-26T03:20:19","slug":"precious-lee-daniels-2009-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=6581","title":{"rendered":"Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at the Riviera Theater in Santa Barbara.<\/p>\n

\"\"If you’ve ever suffered from self-pity, you need to watch the film Precious<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 <\/em>It is a simple but profound tale of one illiterate\u00a0girl’s journey from horrific childhood into responsible adulthood.<\/p>\n

Gabby Sidibe plays Claireece Precious Jones, an overweight and pregnant 16 year old teenage mother, that hasn’t graduated out of Jr. High School yet.\u00a0 Her reading and writing skills are\u00a0below literacy level\u00a0and she is\u00a0the victim of sexual\u00a0abuse by both her father and mother, as well as verbal and physical abuse.<\/p>\n

When the school principal finds out that Precious is pregnant with her second child, she expels Precious and recommends her for an alternative school.\u00a0 As Precious considers the alternative school,\u00a0her mother\u00a0Mary\u00a0(portrayed by comedian Mo’Nique),\u00a0 shoots the idea down, telling her she needs to get her butt down to the welfare office and file for the second unborn child.<\/p>\n

Precious is constantly told how stupid she is and that she will never amount to anything.\u00a0 While her miserable life presumes, Precious escapes into a fantastic\u00a0world of make-believe, where she is beautiful, desired, and appreciated.<\/p>\n

Although this story is simple enough\u00a0in format,\u00a0Lee\u00a0Daniels magically\u00a0moves the audience from Precious’\u00a0oppressive reality to splashy, extravagant daydreaming\u00a0in the wink of an eye, and it works!\u00a0 It is really\u00a0something to behold; after\u00a0Mary spews vial, humiliating words at her, Precious retreats into her photo album, and suddenly a photo of her mother comes to life speaking encouraging, loving words to her.<\/p>\n

Not only is Sidibe absolutely brilliant as Precious –\u00a0taking her character\u00a0from the\u00a0torment, on to the other side of hope, but all the actors are perfectly cast and do a supreme job, down to\u00a0the bit part given to Mariah Carey as Precious’ case worker, who brings a real humanity to her role as Mrs. Weiss.<\/p>\n

Everything great you’ve heard or read about the film Precious is absolutely 100% true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at the Riviera Theater in Santa Barbara. If you’ve ever suffered from self-pity, you need to watch the film Precious.\u00a0 It is a simple but profound tale of one illiterate\u00a0girl’s journey from horrific childhood into responsible adulthood. Gabby Sidibe plays Claireece Precious Jones, an overweight and pregnant 16 year old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cinema-society","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}