Precious (2009/Lionsgate Blu-ray + DVD)

 

Picture: B/B-     Sound: B-     Extras: B     Film: B

 

 

When I first saw Precious, I knew it was something more than just another independent film.  In a time when “independent” has been ruined by endless package deals and a true glut of junk, Director Lee Daniel’s adaptation the novel by Sapphire is the kind of film we used to see all the time, taking risks, being about something and exceeding dramatic and melodramatic formulas.  I knew when it was all over, I knew I had seen one of the best films of 2009 and hoped it would find an audience.

 

Now on Blu-ray and DVD, it has, with a long road of awards, positive reviews, accolades and controversy since it started to make an impact.  It has made a star out of Gabourey Sidibe amazing and totally immersed as the title character, features a cast that deserves to go on to great careers, has a great turn by Mariah Carey as a caring case worker, Lenny Kravitz proving he can act and the comic actress Monique taking the deepest, darkest turn as one of the most thankless characters in recent cinema history and not allowing her to become a cartoon or caricature in a brutally honest performance.

 

Like all great films, Precious starts off being interesting immediately from its disturbing, purposely frustrating and attention-grabbing credits to the first words of voice over narrative we hear from the title teen as she explains how she sees the world.  So much is ugly, she is alone, has no love, no friends, is trapped in the living hell that Reagan’s America made possible and still fantasizes about not just getting out, but finding great happiness and even The American Dream as far as she can see it; thrown in her face by the media constantly.  In this, I was reminded (an not just because this takes place in New York) of John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969) in which Joe Buck thinks he’ll find his fortune as a male prostitute and finds exploitation and pain instead, including a past he cannot escape.

 

Precious is younger and more naïve, not helped by her mother Mary (Monique) allowing her to be a constant victim of incest and worse.  Like the credits, the audience does not understand what Mary’s problem is wither daughter and why she is so angry and abusive, but as the film goes on it is about projecting, dumping on, hating and being totally irresponsible about who she should be in life.  Mary is a menace and is so far past the point of no return that she a toxic disaster to all she comes in contact with.  This includes trying to keep her daughter from going to school and just going to the welfare office, but Precious must attend or they’ll lose benefits.

 

But the film speaks to a deeper pain of those left behind by the irresponsible greed spree of the last 30 years, a society that we know better should not have existed and pay the highest price for allowing to exist.  It is the failure of The Civil Rights Movement, politicians, elites and those who hate and are racist that this film is inadvertently also about.  Note that one way or another, everyone is either on the edge and/or edge of society and how by keeping everything from racism to incest not dealt with, we create an uglier world.  Whether this is intended or not, that is the world of this film and though some have wrongly criticized it for being “racist” instead of being willing to deal with said issues or unrealistic because of the extremity of the situation presented, the only way to make the point is to show it at its extreme, or the film would be a failure.

 

Between the curse of Political Correctness (a retro-Stalinist movement that is also killing the country and not addressed here) and thinking that denying oppression will make it go away, anything less from this film would be dishonest.  Of course not all families or black families or single mother families are like this, but the ills suffered (including and especially incest) are too common and commonly unspoken.  This film is brave enough to deal with it and anything else is incidental, but obviously, some people are trying to make political points and simply embarrassing themselves with their ignorance.

 

The only minor issue I have here is that we have seen many serious films on abuse before (Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ and the torture porn cycle have given us that to overkill, plus without dealing with the actual abuse, just showing it which Precious does not wallow in).  The film handles the violence and anger on a psychological level and Geoffrey Fletcher’s very effective script never trips up once in making this the core of the film.  No lies, sentimentality or turning away from the truth.  That makes him the most promising new writer of the year.

 

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image may have moments of grain and roughness, but also has moments of some of the best depth and detail (and not just in dream sequences) of any film of any budget all year.  It is interesting how the clarity comes through in subtle ways, but Director of Photography Andrew Dunn (shooting in 3-perf 35mm film) delivers some of the best work of his career here as he leaves the digital bells and whistles behind and does not degrade details, making this world more palpable than most dramas of late.  The anamorphically enhanced DVD is as good as it is going to look, but undercuts the better shots because it cannot deliver them.

 

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on the Blu-ray is better than the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on the DVD version in more warmth and being able to have less of a sonic ceiling, but the soundmaster has times where the dialogue recording is almost monophonic and silence is used more effectively than expected.  Considering the budget, the mix has character.  Mario Grigorov scores the film in personal best breakthrough ways and never overdoes it.

 

Extras in both versions include a feature length audio commentary track by Daniels, Sapphire/Lee Daniels on camera interview, Sidibe’s audition tape, “Incest Survivor Meeting” Deleted Scene and four featurettes including From Push To Precious, A Precious Ensemble, Oprah & Tyler: A Project of Passion and Reflections on Precious.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo