Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

(USA, 109 mins, 35mm)

EXEC PRODS: Lisa Cortes, Tom Heller
PRODS: Lee Daniels Sarah Siegel-Magness, Gary Magness
SCR: Damien Paul
CAM: Andrew Dunn
ED: Joe Klotz
Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Paula Patton, Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey, Sherry Shepherd, Lenny Kravitz

An urban nightmare with a surfeit of soul, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is 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. Everyone involved deserves credit for creating a movie so dangerous, problematic and ultimately elevating..But this is, for all its scorched-earth emotion, a film to be loved... Adapted by Damien Paul from the work by one-time Harlem teacher and poet Sapphire, the pic tells the story of Claireece "Precious" Jones, a character who might have sprung from the collective brain of Charles Dickens, Toni Morrison and whoever carved the heads on Easter Island. With a jutting jaw and barely visible eyes, Claireece's face is a monument to the racial crimes of the past 400 yearrs... Mute and mountainous, a stolid outsider who can barely read, Claireece is pregnant--again--by her father and on the verge of being kicked out of school. She's also cruelly oppressed by her mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), whose daily routine consists of watching daytime TV, smoking cigarettes and treating her daughter like a slave (any historical parallels are not an accident)... Precious is a horror movie, of course, and Mary is a monster, whose one glimmer of humanity--which Mo'Nique, who is utterly brilliant, reveals in a tour de force soliloquy at the finale--only makes her more horrible...

Daniels never allows the film, however gothic and nightmarish, to lose its footing in the real world... Among the many delightful surprises in the film is Mariah Carey, who is pitch-perfect as a welfare counselor and serves as this demi-tragedy's Greek chorus. It's possible that many viewers won't recognize her until the final credits, but like so many things about Precious, the performance is disarming...--John Anderson, Variety

Winner, Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award, Sundance 2009.

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