I just saw this. Wow, what an amazing movie this is. I loved it so much, I had to watch all the extras on the Blu-ray disc as well, just so that I could find out more about the author of the book, and the actors and the director, and even the producers and what each saw in the story.
Spoilers follow. Don’t read until you see the movie.
My absolute favorite scene in this movie is the scene where Precious goes to the “Each one, teach one” school for the first time. She’s just had to steal her breakfast and has eaten a whole bucket full of friend chicken, and as she’s waiting for her first class, she vomits this meal right out into the garbage can. And as she sits there, looking absolutely miserable, almost paralyzed, the teacher comes out and tells her to come to the class. But she doesn’t move. She just sits there. And as an audience member, I was almost trying to will her to move. Or at least say something. Anything. It created this frustration and rumbling inside of me, made me empathize so strongly with that fear, the physical sickness of this pregnant young woman, on the precipice. You want her to overcome it and go to that class, but you’re just not sure if she can do it. Ugh. So awesome.
I also really appreciated how Lee Daniels presents all the nasty, horrible abuse that is part of the story, but does it in a way so that the audience isn’t allowed to dwell on it too much. You immediately go into the girl’s defense mechanism, and it really lets you just breathe as an audience member. You don’t want to see that, and you don’t want the movie to show you that, but it shows you enough before taking you away that you know what happened.
One final note: When watching the casting special feature on the movie, I was really surprised to find out that the movie has Mariah Carey as one of the fairly important characters in the movie. I had no idea. She was just amazing. She was really good. Obviously, now that I know it’s Mariah Carey, it seems obvious when looking at those scenes, but I honestly had no idea when watching the movie. She is a really good actress apparently, when directed well.
Man, it’s a shame more people didn’t watch this movie. Yes, the subject matter is hard, but the movie handles it really well, and it really is a very hopeful and positive movie despite the subject matter.