Sweet lord Jesus: NY Press’ Armond White is so on-the-money with his PRECIOUS review (http://www.nypress.com/article-20554-pride-precious.html) that I guess I don’t have all that much to add. Armond White is awesome!
Ok maybe a few things...
I totally agree that PRECIOUS reflects more of an affluent fear of human detritus – riddled with incest and violence and hopelessness – than any sort of urban reality. It runs on only one cylinder – the “shock value” of its premise (fat girl, twice pregnant by her father, escapes abusive mother through…math). Unfortunately for me, the last movie I saw was ANTICHRIST, so it’s gonna take a bit more than incest (even tacitly-condoned incest…the MOM and GRANDMA are just as guilty) to stir me up.
Problem is that beyond the “OH NO HE DIDN’T” of it all, it’s a fairly lame, uneventful, prosaic story. White suffered from seeing the film in the film festival petri dish (he calls it an "ordeal" which I can only imagine...consider the self-congratulation), but I saw it on 42nd street where me and my three friends were the only white people in the maximum-capacity crowd. And while I think the audience reaction-factor helped the film (scenes of domestic retaliation, sassy backtalk, and general abhorrence played as QUITE FUNNY to my discerning crowd), it also exposed one of the movie’s weakest traits. That is, by so carefully outlining who we are supposed to root for--who are the nasty rapists, who are the good little girls with big dreams—subtlety no longer plays the slightest part. Then again: for a film about the most abused, neglected, devalued of humans who goes by the name of PRECIOUS, I guess subtlety was never really in the picture.
And when my (white) friend leaned over to whisper "they're like a parody of themselves" (referring to the audience, with all their HOOTIN' and HOLLERING) I realized that he was simultaneously right and entirely missing the point. But that's actually a good description of the film in general.
I do disagree with White about Mo’Nique, whose performance I do think came close to reflecting “depths” within herself. Only in her final monologue, where she breaks down in front of Mariah Carey’s useless social worker, does the film try (and, yes, fail) to do something interesting – complicate the dynamic by giving us just a tad bit of sympathy for MOTHER. And in telling the story of her boyfriend's pattern of sexual abuse, in weeping out its details, Mo’Nique pulls off a neat trick – we hate her even more for her shameful silence through it all, but we respond to her suffering and misery on a purely human level. We feel bad for her, just for a second, and then remember that she is the villain. Mariah Carrey’s character is not even a fraction as nuanced (and her Fran Drescher accent absurd). Nor is her character really even necessary, as really just another iteration of the good, pure, light-skinned teacher—but I guess our celebrity team of crackpot (maybe crack-pipe is more appropriate here) producers thought we needed one more big name.
PRECIOUS’ worst sin, however, is not its flimsy plot, maudlin diatribes, weird racism (dark = bad) or downright crappy photography. Its biggest problem is that it’s just TOO DAMN MEDIOCRE. In a way, it would have been better if it were worse -- at least we wouldn't have to keep discussing it. I wish it was shocking or outsized or verite, instead it’s a contained, do-ragged fairy tale, simplistic and false, keen to see RACE where PERSON would be so much more complicated. PRECIOUS avoids complications, which makes it easy (for some people) to root for, but it isn’t nearly as brave as Oprah would have us think. And, as we’re sure to forget (we always do) when the next independent film flash-point putters to the Hollywood fore, not nearly as precious.
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