Precious

Colleen's Thoughts:
This movie has been difficult for me to process. My English professor sent us a NY Times article where critical race scholars were going back and forth on the merit of this film. Not being from a black community or a poor community for that matter, I have little background in how I should place this movie.
I talked to my friend Reva who really enjoyed the film. She said she felt like it was an updated version of “The Color Purple” and many other critics agree with her. I also thought she made an interesting point. She said that looking at everything that happens to Precious may make the movie unbelievable for some, but she prefers to see the character Precious as a pastiche, who embodies the plight of many black women.
Do I think that this movie is as great as so many other critics? No. Do I think it is incredibly original and will blow people’s minds? Not really. Do I think it raises interesting questions and gets people to talk about race? Yes. All and all the buzz Precious has accrued is far more interesting than the movie itself. It is a typical American tale in which someone against all odds finds a way to overcome. However, incest, obesity, HIV, and domestic violence are not mainstays of this genre.
For everything this movie had going against it: Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz and a nod from Oprah and Tyler Perry I thought Precious, against all odds, was fine.

Drew's Thoughts:
With everything I heard about this movie, I fought hard to keep an open mind going in and I came out with the film being a little better than I anticipated.
I thought it was a decent movie with the strengths (Gabby Sidibe's performance as the title character and the screenplay) usually overcoming the often poor direction by Lee Daniels. I liked the character of Precious, I thought she was developed pretty well through some funny, well-written interior monologue and the expressive cadence that Sidibe used for the film. She certainly gave the best performance in the movie though the supporting cast is generally decent if sometimes lacking subtlety.
I was, however, underwhelmed by comedian Mo'Nique's performance who has been picking up Best Supporting Actress awards left and right. It's a decent performance, not bad, but I didn't feel like she added anything special to the character she was given. I feel you could have gotten any large, African-American actress who fit the profile and told her to shout every line of dialogue and you would have ended up with roughly the same performance. There isn't much nuance there.
A side note, there were times when Mo'Nique's verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse seemed somewhat comic or cartoonish to me. Maybe I'm just a terrible heartless person (though I definitely felt for Precious so I don't think this is the case) but I found myself laughing a few times and I'm confused whether that was supposed be intentional or not. Because if it is intentional it was a bad decision and if it wasn't it's a fault in execution.
Back to Mo'Nique though, she's a bit better in the final scene, which I found to be similar to Viola Davis's scene in Doubt last year (crying black mothers discussing the difficult, questionable choices of their parenthood,) but where Davis was electrifying and affecting, Mo'Nique is merely serviceable at delivering the interesting dialogue she is given. She definitely doesn't do anything extraordinary with it the way Davis did, and Davis only had one scene to establish herself and develop her character!
Overall though, I was invested in the story and Sidibe's performance as Precious, and I do think it's great that a film like this has been fairly successful in the mainstream. Also, unlike the other recent film about the life of struggling black youth, Precious gives its character a voice instead of Sandra Bullock to speak on its behalf which is definitely worthy of respect whether you care for the movie or not.