Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire

Precious is a raw, emotional film that's not always easy to watch. But two powerhouse performances will ensure you can't look away, says Emma Rowley.

The story comes from a 1996 stream-of-consciousness novel Push by a New York author and performance poet, Sapphire (hence the film’s unwieldy title). Claireece ‘Precious’ Jones is a 16-year-old girl from Harlem. She is about to be expelled from her school after her head teacher finds that she's pregnant for a second time. Her first child, who has Down’s Syndrome, is being cared for by her grandmother. Precious herself lives with her self-pitying and abusive mother, who, far from wanting her to succeed, resents her and blocks her attempts to change. Hope comes in the form of an alternative school programme, Each One Teach One, where an inspiring teacher uses journals to create a written dialogue with the kids and give them a little self-confidence along with their literacy skills.

That all sounds worryingly like movie cliché hell but Precious is a very different film from those we are used to seeing on the big screen. When incest makes an appearance in cinema, it usually does so veiled in a gauzy wrap of eroticism (China Town, The Cement Garden); and childhoods of abuse or neglect are penned into the establishing scenes, for our protagonist to overcome or refer back to in moody, muted revelations. Unpleasant truths are refined, restrained and artfully recast as backstory, plot motivator, even as the necessary shading that makes a chiaroscuro so effective. But Precious eschews these tasteful artistic tricks.

Instead, the film offers something altogether different. Much more brutal, much more affecting. It's a coming-of-age story that makes you wonder what the hell all the other coming-of-age stories you’ve seen were supposed to be about. Jock McChin has to grapple with the fact that he won't make a pro-football team? Blondie Homecoming's mom wants her to be in pageants? Speccy Newyorkerson's parents don't have time to see his school play? Move along, whiners.

The film’s immersive power comes from its unvarnished depiction of Precious' life in 1980s Harlem – and two barnstorming performances. The first is from Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the lead. It’s her first film role and she inhabits the part perfectly, using subtle and compelling means to show her character’s transformation. The second is from Mo'Nique, who plays her mother. If you've been following the awards coverage and wondering how Mo'Nique has been scooping all the best supporting actress awards (a Golden Globe, a National Society of Film Critics Award, another twenty-odd wins and fifteen nominations) and if they can possibly be justified, you need to see this film. It might be jumping the gun to say she's got the best supporting Oscar in the bag when the nominations won’t be announced for another week, but her performance is head and shoulders above anything else we've seen this year.

Precious is only Lee Daniels’ second feature (after the 2005 assassin flick, Shadowboxer, which starred Helen Mirren and Mo’Nique in a supporting role) and while his work with his leads is unquestionably brilliant, some other directorial decisions have an experimental feel rather than the assured consistency that the story requires. There are some badly misjudged visual metaphors, like a clock whose hands spin very fast to indicate time is passing, and historical images projected onto the windows and walls of a classroom to indicate that Precious is learning.

But it’s the secondary casting that caused the most problems for this reviewer. Many column inches have been devoted to Mariah Carey's inclusion (she doesn't wear a sequinned gown or have butterflies in her hair!) as a social worker and to Lenny Kravitz' role as a sexy nurse's assistant. While Carey makes a good job of her part (not so much Kravitz), it's hard to feel great that so much space has been devoted to discussing the appearance of a supporting actor in a film that is aiming to show that people can be transformed – in the most significant ways – without weight loss or makeovers. Other cast members (most noticeably Paula Patton as teacher Blu Rain) are also so rilly, rilly, ridiculously good-looking that they challenge the sense of reality the film strives to maintain. But in all probability, Precious would never have been made without the star names and pretty faces that populate the background, which says more about the industry than this film in particular. Nonetheless, it’s a shame that a film which shows an obese young black woman envisaging herself as a slender blonde in order to face the world has to bend to the same cultural pressures.

In spite of these flaws, it's a striking and insightful film powered by two incredible performances. 

Rating on a scale of 5 journals for the teacher: 3

Release date: UK: 29 January, US: out now
Directed by: Lee Daniels
Written by: Geoffrey Fletcher, Sapphire
Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Sherri Shepherd, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, Stephanie Andujar
Rating: 15
Running time: 110 mins