PRECIOUS* : [6/10] : Lee Daniels : US 09 : 110m : {16/28}

Neither the masterpiece that some have acclaimed, nor the debacle that others have reviled, Precious is a flawed, uneven but ultimately quite moving chronicle of a obese, teenage black girl's horrendous life in 1987 Harlem.
   Elevated by a pair of outstanding lead performances – by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe as Precious, a monosyllabic, illiterate 16-year-old; and the somewhat more experienced Mo'Nique as her abusive, trash-talking mother Mary – it's an episodic affair which manages to avoid excessive sentimentality as it relates a melodramatically weepie tale of grinding urban misery.
   The supporting cast is incongrously starry, featuring extended cameos from Lenny Kravitz (as a cool-but-nice male nurse) and Mariah Carey (near-unrecognisable as a put-upon social worker). But in a film which repeatedly delves into its protagonist's ultra-glamorous showbiz-inspired inner life, such risky casting-decisions do make a kind of sense.
   Indeed, casting-directors Billy Hopkins and Jessica Kelly are the perhaps unsung hero and heroine of this enterprise, as pretty much every role is filled by lively, convincing performers: Paula Patton, as Precious's teacher, makes particular appeal as a foxy leading-lady in waiting. One wonders if Kelly, Hopkins and director Daniels selected Mo'Nique on the basis of her brief but forceful and extremely funny turn in Tony Scott's unfairly-despised Domino (2005): check out the instant-classic "Chinegro" Jerry Springer scene here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCXdc22t_C8
   Daniels could perhaps have learned something from Scott's wildly kinetic but hyper-confident handling of trickily "extreme" material in that picture. In this, only his second movie as a director after 2005's Shadowboxer, Daniels struggles to segue between reality and fantasy sequences, and his deployment of Andrew Dunn's high-toned, lush cinematography for the former is surely ill-advised. What should be grittily raw is instead excessively slick, so that Precious runs the risk of aestheticising and even romanticising its grim, poverty-stricken dystopias. Still, the picture's heart seems to be in the right place – the occasional lapse in taste/judgement/control notwithstanding.

Neil Young
26th February, 2010

 ¦ Empire cinema, Sunderland, UK, 24.Feb.10 ( £4.80)  ¦

* full title on print : Precious (base on nol by saf) (based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire)