“Precious”: an American classic or overrated film festival bait?

Sad movie. Captured the times. I’d never watch it again

It was a great movie

Black trauma porn is a real issue and Moonlight suffers from some of that as well. I think the real problem occurs when that sort of content gets produced and rewarded (by mostly white people) disproportionately more than "regular" black stories. That's why American Fiction with Jeffrey Wright is currently making such waves.

It was one of those excellent films that you only watch once.

[quote]Is Precious a classic American film?

No.

Very 'woke' before it became a thing.

Underage, obese, black girl with AIDS who was raped and impregnated twice by her own absentee, deadbeat father, with one of the kids having Down Syndrome, and living in abject poverty with her abusive welfare queen mother.

Everything but the dogs nipping at her heels.

I've never seen anything like it before or since. It's a weird movie and I really enjoy it.

[quote] Very 'woke' before it became a thing.

There is nothing 'woke' about "Precious." It is a fantasia of Black dysfunction and blight that is completely consistent with the majority culture's impression of Black people and Black life.

I’m black and it was a comedy to me and most of my black friends. Maybe we’re all just desensitized assholes, but the whole thing was overkill. Running with stolen chickens ?? Come on…and also,

Has Oscar recognition ever really helped any Black actor’s career? Maybe Denzel with Glory and Whoopi for Ghost, but after them, not really. I could be wrong though….idk.

Stolen chicken, singular.

It needed a recipe for a human feces infused chocolate pie to truly hit the sweet spot.

R8 Have you told the author that?

It’s definitely head and shoulders better than For Colored Girls (Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf).

Oh, and maybe Morgan Freeman’s Shawshank nomination.

(^.^) More likely his nomination for Driving Miss Daisy (1990)

[Quote] Has Oscar recognition ever really helped any Black actor’s career?

certainly not for Will Smith

nor Jennifer Hudson

R13 I didn’t even watch that one. Sitting through the play was hard enuf.

[quote] nor Jennifer Hudson

She could win the Nobel Peace Prize and it wouldn't change the fact that she is the shittiest actress working today.

It didn’t help JHud’s acting career, but it helped establish her as a household name who can eventually get her own talk show.

Same for Octavia Spencer, Lupita N’yongo, Regina King, They get parts, but they’re not great ones.

I’d say the Oscar helped Viola Davis win above the title Hollywood roles.

Precious's life doesn't seem that over-the-top after watching a bunch of Soft White Underbelly videos. Some people do have more than one bad thing happen to them in life.

Not so Precious

"What we have here is a fouled-up fairy tale of oppression and empowerment, and it’s hard not to be ensnared by its mixture of rank maleficence and easy reverie. The gap between being genuinely stirred and having your arm twisted, however, is narrower than we care to admit". -The New Yorker Anthony Lane

'The elements of Precious are powerful and shocking, but the movie is programmed. It is its own study guide".-New York Magazine Savid Edelstein

[quote] nor Jennifer Hudson

She is an EGOT. Her Oscar definitely helped her profile as an entertainer.

JUD is not so much an EGOT as a FORGOT I'm not aware of anything that she's done of note since Dreamgirls and though I don't watch every entertainment news show she's never mentioned.

I don’t think it’s overrated. But… I have to agree it perpetuated black stereotypes.

I come from a family of white trash. My grandmother went from man to man and had 11 kids, most of them with a different father. One of her husbands raped all of her daughters.

One of my aunts grew up to have six kids and went schizophrenic. Her kids all went into foster care, some grew up to have serious issues.

There are plenty of white people who could have Precious’s life, no need to single out black people as the welfare recipients and perpetuate the concept of white privilege.

Chitlin camp fest.

[quote] She is an EGOT. Her Oscar definitely helped her profile as an entertainer.

Which is funny, since she's never been entertaining.

And half those awards are specious at best. A daytime emmy for singing a song with two others on a morning show and a Tony for being among the 4-dozen+ "producing" team of a musical where she didn't do a fucking thing.

Sheesh, I thought The Devil's Promise with Paula Patton was fun.

The movie might have been too faithful to the novel to be believable in the flesh.

R27 and Hudson's Oscar was for an unexceptional performance in a cliche ridden film. Maybe the competition was weak (I never saw Babel) but I thought Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench were electrifying in Notes on a Scandal.

Doesn't have to be "or". It can be both.

The scene where she walks down the stairs, looks into a mirror, and sees a white woman version of herself absolutely ruined the movie and would never made it in the film if it was done today.

The movie would've been better if Precious capsized and Monique and Mariah had to find their way out.

[quote] It was one of those excellent films that you only watch once.

Most Academy Award nominated films are.

It did inspire Tracy’s chase for the EGOT with his film Hard to Watch.

Monique blew up her career over not promoting the film. Then she sued Netflix, which was valid, but she could’ve stayed on Oprah’s good side and gotten some power legal counsel instead.

I think Mo’Nique’s head exploded after winning the Oscar and that’s why her career tanked. She really was excellent in Precious, but she thought winning an Oscar (a supporting one) meant she was the female Eddie Murphy. She’s super entitled and unprofessional. Yes, overrated comedians like Amy Schumer don’t deserve $11M for a Netflix special, but Monique at age 40+ was not a “butts in the seat” entertainer. Is her husband gay? They have an open marriage and he’s her childhood best friend…

Monique needs to lose the apostrophe.

Maybe the honorary Oscar will help Angela Basset’s career.

I recall being SHOOK when the mom forced Precious to have sex.

Monique had her husband instead of someone more experienced handling and representing her rather than pay a percentage. She wasn’t following the rules of Hollywood, and made a lot of her contract and business negotiations openly public- this is the absolute kiss of death when negotiating becuase they are also negotiating many other contracts at the same time inside a budget. This in turn caused the industry to not trust or interact with her anymore. She literally threw the baby out with the bathwater at the absolute pinnacle of her popularity where she could’ve gotten everything she wanted if she had a more GRACIOUS tone, like a Black Dolly Parton instead.

There were half a dozen other ways she could’ve gotten more parity with other actors rather than calling out race of gender, and she really needed to line up several tentpole productions before asking for millions more.

The last great CAMP classic.

I remember they changed the title to PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL "PUSH" BY SAPPHIRE, because the Chris Evans/Dakota Fanning superhero movie PUSH had opened that same year.

Then at the Oscars, where it was nominated for 6 awards, presenters were expected to say the entire film title each time it was mentioned. They couldn't just call it PRECIOUS.

Monique's character is one of the greatest film villains of all time. And she delivers. Lee Daniels has shown himself to be a fascinating filmmaker. The Butler shows he can direct a stodgy, straightforward feel good studio biopic and The Paperboy is next level batshit crazy--it nearly veers into John Waters territory but swings for the fences. What other movie would you find Matthew McCaughnahey getting nearly beaten to death (on a tarp!) by a group of black men in a cheap room and then learn that's his sexual kink.

Back to Precious. It's a one and done film. But watch as he cuts around Mariah Carey's performance.

They should do it as a musical starring Lizzo.

R45 I agree with you. I have watched Mo'nique's final scene in Precious several times on Youtube. It is like a masterclass in acting. The range of emotion, how she is able to pull sympathy for a split second for an absolute monster of a person. I think it is one of the best acted scenes in cinema that I can point to. That is the reason she deserved the Oscar. The scene is perfection. You can even see Mariah Carrey wipe a real tear watching Monique's performance from her face. She is living that scene in every fiber of her body.

Lee Danieles is a fascinating director, giving us this film, The Paperboy with Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron and Matthew McConaughey. I actually screen capped that scene of Matthew hogtied naked on a tarp where you almost see his asshole and balls. And he gave us The United States against Billie Holiday, another excellent film. And of course Monster's Ball. Daniels is good for getting great performances (Nominated and Award Winning) from unknown actresses or people we don't view as actors.

And of course giving us some legendary quotable dialogue, "Make me feel good..." "Since you got ya fucking degree, and think you know everything..."

We, and half of the theater, were laughing our asses off. 🍗🍗🍗

I think Oprah should fund a film starring Mo’Nique.

She could sell it to, say, Max, so David Zaslav could later decide to deep-six it and take the write-off.

We could get another year of fun out of her response.

Her Oscar was well-deserved, but awkward acceptance speech.

Samuel L. Jackson even made a face at the end.

The mom throwing the tv at her was memorable for me

My favorite gag was when the Mom sat down and went to turn the TV on after she'd thrown it down the stairwell.

I like when she stole the chicken. "get that big bitch".

I do think audiences (and critics) were momentarily fascinated by seeing a “poor, black, HIV-positive, abused by her mother, twice pregnant by her father, and morbidly obese” teenager depicted on-screen as the main protagonist and “woke”-ness absolutely factored into how this film was embraced. Sidibe was a sympathy Oscar nomination (happens all the time - Marlee Matlin).

I do agree that Mo’Nique was the standout and deserved her Oscar win.

They should do a sequel called "Precious On Ozempic," where she comes back slender and blinged out and reeks revenge on everyone who made her life hell.

I think she's dead r55...

Watched it once and will never watch it (or eat fried chicken) again. Brilliant but depressing.

R9, I think Octavia Spencer wins for biggest career boost from an Oscar (although maybe she got the extra boast because she won). She was pretty much a D-list actress doing weird Comedy Central roles and essentially extra roles on tv shows and movies. But now she’s been nominated 3 times and I would say she’s pretty solidly A list.

I couldn’t finish Precious. The acting was incredible, no question, but it was too brutal. Too hard to watch.

R45 I agree about Mo'Nique. Mary was pure evil. Her monologue at the end about being jealous of her own daughter did nothing to make me feel one iota of sympathy. Her indifference to Precious' sexual assault was horrifying.

There was a sequel to the novel, I think it was called 'Son of Precious.' Surprise surprise Precious's son/brother is a little messed up.

It gave me first hand exposure to ghetto culture. I think it’s a masterpiece.

Where's the remake where Chrissy Metz plays precious?

The girls who were in her class were well cast. They all had chemistry and their scenes were a good respite from the darker parts of the film.

Why did the burden the film with the unwieldy, unnecessary and pretentious subtitle Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire?

It’s the black “Mommie Dearest”.

I think a lot of black people saw this movie as campy fun.

R3 This.

The thing is - white people don’t understand black entertainment or humor.

I think Steven Spielberg came the closest. He was able to nail the drama but the twisted sense of humor black people have, which is why it’s so loved.

It’s like white people loved “12 Years a Slave”, black people preferred Richard Pryor and Dave Chapelle’s interpretations of the slavery era lol.

That’s how the N word started in the 60’s and 70’s. It was the humor of black people calling each other it and it just caught on lol.

“Precious” had no intentional sense of humor. But black people still found it funny. That’s where the filmmakers fucked up.

[quote] JUD is not so much an EGOT as a FORGOT I'm not aware of anything that she's done of note since Dreamgirls and though I don't watch every entertainment news show she's never mentioned.

Chile, she is the host of a highly-rated daily talk show so please go have a seat.

Some of us have too much childhood sexual trauma of our own to be watching that sh.t. Sounds like one could make it a double feature with Dancer in the Dark then just kill yourself after.

I remember when Kathy Griffin caught hell by referring to Sarah Palin's daughter as "the white Precious."

They wanted Lucy to play Precious but Gary talked her out of it.

[quote]Why did the burden the film with the unwieldy, unnecessary and pretentious subtitle Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire?

R65 - R44 explained the reason.

This movie along with REQUIEM FOR A DREAM are two films that I can’t watch again no matter how good they were.

I just saw this a few months ago after years of avoiding it. It's a little TOO much. The performances were great--especially Monique--but it IS the epitome of film festival/Oscar bait. I mean...stealing the bucket of chicken? The extra-abusive mother times 10? Being raped by her father and having the baby?

It's like ALL of the Black writers from the decades prior to its release got together and created a story about the WORST aspects of being Black and living in the inner city.

R72 the explanation a R44 may be right but makes no sense. The film's title was Precious not to be confused with Push so why the subtitle?

At least it holds up better than Crash. That is the movie most undeserved of any good reviews or attention it go. LOL it the ensemble. It was like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World had an ooops with the car.

Whoopi should have been cast as the mother with Whitney Houston as Precious and Bobby Brown as the social worker.

R67, I disagree that 'Precious' had no intentional sense of humor. The film is aware of how high the deck is stacked against its protagonist, and there are moments of twisted humor (Mo'Nique's Mary pretending to be a doting grandmother during the social worker visit, the pantomime of 'Two Women' in which Mary, in incongruously tender Italian, instructs Precious to "eat, you whore") and levity in the form of the Each One, Teach One students ("my favorite color is fluorescent beige"), and Precious running with the chicken ("Get that big bitch!").

The performances are excellent, and Gabourey Sidibe was by no means a pity Oscar nominee. She gave the best performance of the five nominated actresses that year, even if she was never treated as a serious contender for the win. The media made the race all about Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep, and earlier in the season, Carey Mulligan, but their work was nowhere near what Sidibe accomplished in this film.

The chicken theft scene is one of the funniest scenes in cinematic history. And it doesn’t take away from the dramatic stakes of the film. If you black you can relate to that scene. Not the desperation of stealing chicken, but the random acts of absurdity in urban life. “I’m tryna watch my figure” she doesn’t want sides so she easily run off with the whole bucket. It is brilliant and hilarious.

It's been years since I watched it but didn't the mother force Precious to um... lick her mother's ____?

R80 OF COURSE, she did. Of course, she did.

Gabourey Cinnabon should thank Dakota Fanning, who turned down the role.

I still think Julia Roberts would have been better in the role.

You woke white bitches need to watch American Fiction.

R80 dat's right bitch, she ate mah muthfukkin pussee

The grace note of Precious was the quite terrific acting from the entire cast (with the exception of the decorative Paula Patton).

Gabby Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carey gave sensitive and considered performances.

[quote] Julia Roberts would have been better in the role.

Not before ME, beeyotch

The wild part about this movie is that you don't realize just how monstrous Mo'Nique's character is until that monologue at the end. We know she's a psycho bitch from frame one, but the sexual abuse revelations at the end reveal just how much of a sick, demented cunt she truly is. It is a shock the first time you see it. As others have noted, the acting is almost uniformly outstanding from everyone involved.

People often discredit Gabourey Sibidbe's performance in this, but if you compare her mannerisms and way of speaking in character vs. in real life, you really do see just how involved of a performance this was for her. In real life, she talks and acts like a bubbly valley girl—the total opposite of her character. I remember at the time this movie came out, some people were writing her off as some uneducated ghetto teen who was hired to play herself onscreen, which just isn't the case.

Fun Fact: Viola Davis was the first choice of producers for the lead role. However, it was felt that she was too young to play a teenager. Also, because no one wanted to work with a raging cunt with a never ending runny nose, she was quickly forgotten.

The only reason why this movie won’t get the acclaim and lasting legacy it deserves is because upper middle class blacks always feel some type of way about these type of stories. “Trauma porn” as many have correctly labeled makes them to unable to sleep at night. I get it. However this shit is a powerful as film and the fucking performances are brilliant, many from new or unknown for dramatic roles entertainers. Gabby gives one of the best debut film performances in screen history. Yes history. And Monique. Say what you want about her. It is one of the greatest supporting performances, hell on screen performances of all time. I won’t even say she not even acting but her character is so ignorant. But she plays that shit to the fucking nines. When you operate in big cities you see a big fucking ignorant broad like her many times. Obviously you don’t know or most aren’t allowing their obese daughter to be molested. But also even she is fucking ignorant piece of shit, she is not really a villain. A lesser movie would have painted it like that. She is fucking water that’s what it is. That scene Mariah Carrey near the films end is almost like a documentary. Even Mariah Carey rises to the occasion. It’s not a perfect film but the acting is superb.

She is fucking warped* should read.

Maybe the black community wouldn't be so embarrassed if we had better options for dramatic stories that didn't center around race, downtrodden or uplifting. Can we get a drama where people don't actually speak broken English? One of the best depictions of a black family that was neither perfect nor downtrodden, but actually very flawed was The Leftovers on HBO, second season I believe. Regina King and Kevin Carroll play husband and wife in a pretty fucked up family that doesn't center around their race. I was like, yes, we aren't perfect, we are human like everyone else and not all from the hood or 1950s America. It was refreshing to see. Lovecraft Country was decent too.

I’m about 10 seasons in on “Call The Midwife”, and though you could call it trauma porn, there are plenty of downtrodden characters, mostly white but also every other color migrants in Poplar as well. Some of the stories resonate with me because I came from a broken home, recognized some of the things poor people had to do to get by, and empathized and related with many of the characters. There are tales of pathos and resilience in the face of adversity, that if put in a master storyteller’s hands can transcend race, colo, genderr and other boundaries.

We all want the same thing in the human experience.

For some reason, a story about regular black people won't sell. There either has to be a racial dynamic or an "in da hood" narrative going on for mainstream audiences to feel comfortable. I remember when THE COSBY SHOW first came out, a couple of white guys on my navy ship got written up because they made disparaging remarks about the Huxtables being upper middle class. They said that black people like that didn't exist.

I think the reason black movies with racial dynamics play well is because the greater public enjoy them.

I was introduced to The Color Purple by the owner of a Jewish children’s bookstore I worked in as a teenager. The women loved movies and books about the Black condition and race relations because I really think they spoke to her inherited post-Holocaust trauma.

For the most part the majority of Denzel Washington’s action revenge films could be made with an actor of another race with some nominal changes. Ditto Will Smith’s action comedies.

There’s dramas and etc made by black cinema. I think white Hollywood won’t allow it.

I watched this film and felt like it was the story of my life. We are all of us, Precious.

I’m going to say classic.

Plus, Mariah acting like a normie is brilliant.

[quote]There’s dramas and etc made by black cinema. I think white Hollywood won’t allow it.

Jordon Peele is making some headway. The movie US, even though the entire cast was black with supporting white players as friends of the family, didn't center around their blackness. Nope was similar as well with an actual story of a black family owning a horse ranch in Hollywood. But movies that don't pander to the black community (Tyler Perry, Barbershop) or movies that don't pander to a white liberal audience with downtrodden black characters surviving racism and oppression (Greenbook, The Help) are few and far between. Although I must say Moonlight was amazing and I still can't believe a movie with it's subject matter won Best Picture.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

The first time I saw it I thought it was very powerful but the second time it seemed very campy. Like the scene where she absconds with a bucket of fried chicken

Based on the novel Push by sapphire

They demanded I take the role of Precious but I had just finished climbing Everest and didn’t have the time.

[quote] But movies that don't pander to the black community (Tyler Perry, Barbershop)…

I don’t think it’s fair to put Barbershop in the “pander” category. It’s a genial comedy that displayed to a wide American audience something specific about the black experience - the way a men’s barber shop is one of the centres for social life in the community - and was reasonably well reviewed at the time.

R103, maybe pander was the wrong word to use. They are good films. I was just commenting that it was a black film geared to a black audience, even if it received a wider audience. This is in comparison to a film like US that had a black cast but was positioned more as a horror film and it wasn't geared to a black audience. It wasn't a discussion about black life, but one of an American family who happened to be black. There aren't that many films with black casts that don't use the Black experience in America as one of the major themes.

You all must be kidding me. This shit was a borderline minstrel show, redeemed solely by the inherent, glorious truly unintentional camp on that hack Lee Daniels part. Mo’nique seemed very knowing though, and it shows in her performance.

I’m a Regina King stan. I think her career has been varied and she has been able to establish a career with some exceptional performances. The tragic suicide of her only child last year seems to have sidelined her a bit but I love her in just about everything she’s done.

It's amazing the trajectory of some careers r106. I would have never thought watching 227 almost 40 years ago now that the daughter would end up being the one with the most successful career, relevant all these years later.

I know, R107 everyone thought it would be Pearl (Helen Martin) who would go on to bigger and better things in the decades to come...