Sapphire’s “Precious”: My Review
I finally saw “Precious.” My biggest problem with this deeply affecting movie, which stars Gabourey Sidibe (pictured), is the title. The Sapphire novel it’s based on is called “Push,” which accurately describes the uphill struggles of the main character, an unspeakably abused, overweight Harlem teenager. The movie, produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, is called “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” Of course, it’s being shorthanded as “Precious,” which makes it sound formulaic and gooey, which it most emphatically is not. An urban nightmare with a surfeit of soul, the movie’s like a diamond — clear, bright, but oh so hard. To simply call it harrowing or unsparing doesn’t quite cut it; “Precious†is also courageous and uncompromising, a shaken cocktail of debasement and elation, despair and hope. The images of the title character, Claireece “Precious” Jones, walking hopelessly through uptown streets, is the newest icon in the cinematic gallery of Manhattan down ‘n outers. We haven’t had a figure this lonely since De Niro in “Taxi Driver” and Dustin Hoffman in “Midnight Cowboy.” I have only one possible reservation about “Precious”: its ending can be read in a dangerous fashion: that having babies as a teenager is a way to bring love into your life when there isn’t any. As anyone tending an infant knows, love is only one part of it, and not the part that gets you by in the absence of money and support.
