‘Precious’ Hard to watch, hard to forget

By CHRISTOPHER KELLY

This movie is harrowing and unforgiving.

“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” follows a teenager named Claireece ‘Precious’ Jones struggling with incest, illiteracy, physical abuse, poverty and obesity in 1980s Harlem. The movie is harrowing and unforgiving — a two-hour pile-on that leaves poor Precious (not to mention the audience) with no room to breathe.

But the direction by Lee Daniels is so acute and tender and the ensemble cast so shockingly good that “Precious” manages the near-impossible: It transcends its own miserableness. What could have been the dreariest movie imaginable turns out to be a stirring portrait of triumph in the face of disaster.

When we first meet her, Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) is living in a dank Harlem apartment with her violent mother Mary (Mo’Nique). Pregnant for the second time by her father (who remains off-screen), Precious is invited to enroll in a school for young women with special needs. Her mother regards education as pointless: The only thing that can help them, she believes, is their monthly welfare check. But Precious is intrigued by her sophisticated, patient teacher, Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), and commits to the program.

The story isn’t especially elaborate: The film juxtaposes the serenity and hopefulness of the classroom against the savagery that Precious encounters at home. Each time she seems to take a step forward, she’s faced with another dreadful setback. Narrated by the title character (the screenplay adaptation is by Geoffrey Fletcher), the film also periodically lapses into fantasy: This teenager dreams that she might one day become a supermodel. Those dream sequences, luminously shot by cinematographer Andrew Dunn, contrast heartbreakingly with the day-to-day reality of Precious’ existence, a world of browns and grays as oppressive as you’d find in any horror movie.

Daniels walks an impressive high-wire act: Each time the movie becomes almost too much to bear (consider yourself warned about the sequence in which Mary attacks Precious’ newborn baby), he leavens the proceedings with bursts of humor, courtesy of Precious’ endearingly rambunctious classmates.

The actors are all so ferociously committed and convincing that none of this ever feels manipulative. Sidibe, in her feature-film debut, shows us a young woman as terrified as she is tenacious: It’s a heartbreaking turn that asks for no pity. Mo’Nique, in a performance that deserves to earn her an Oscar, gives us one of the most terrifying movie monsters in recent memory, until — in arguably the most devastating scene in any film this year — she reveals the history of tragedy that caused this woman’s soul to rot.

In smaller roles, Patton, Lenny Kravitz (as a nurse in the hospital where Precious gives birth) and Mariah Carey (as a social worker) all seem to be living their characters’ lives as opposed to merely acting.

The result is a movie at once exhausting and exultant — an endurance test that leaves you deeply grateful to have gone through the paces.

Precious might not see any of her supermodel fantasies come true, but she ultimately achieves something greater: a small measure of hope for a better tomorrow.