Precious

As you may have noticed, I’ve been a bit bad with my updates. Although this is partly to do with workloads, directing plays and being distracted by my lovely friends, it is also to do with me trying to work out where this blog is going. I want to keep putting poetry up here but I’d like to try and expand what it covers. The plan is to continue with poems, random photos and thoughts but to add a few new things into the mix. I’d like to start putting a few reviews on here as well as perhaps some artwork. I’ve mentioned my book diary before and it really got me thinking, why don’t I also do this online? So in future I’ll be reviewing what I read and some of the films I see when they’re of particular interest. So, starting with this, I want to talk about Precious which I saw a day or so ago. 


I'd been interested in seeing this for a while and finally saw it with my housemate a few days ago. The main protagonist is an obese 16 year old - illiterate, living off benefits and pregnant with her second child she leads a tough life. She is abused by her parents and raped by her father who is the also the father of her children. Through an alternative learning scheme, she is offered the chance to learn and create new opportunities for herself.


The subject matter is harrowing at times. Precious is raped and beaten by her parents and in one wince-inducing incident, falls down the stair with her baby in her arms. She is a girl who has no hope in her life who is given a chance to be something more. It is definitely an inspiring film, and brilliantly acted and generally very well told. Gabourey Sidebe who plays the protagonist, was excellant, managing to be both wise and fragile. There are also some interesting  casting for some of the minor roles. The familiar looking nurse John turned out to be Lenny Kravitz and Ms. Weiss the social worker was an unrecognisable Mariah Carey. I only discovered the second one because I was told. I guess that leads on to something that I liked about the whole film - it looked and felt real. The actors didn't look like actors, something which is sadly becoming a rarity, especially in the American film industry.  

My one very small issue with it was when it ever so occasionally veered into sentimentality. It received 2 Oscars which I am completely unsurprised by. It is the sort of film that gets Oscars. It provokes discussion and emotions. The problem was, that the latter was not done as sensitively as the former. For example, in one scene when Precious tells Ms. Rain that no one loves her, the teacher responds that all of them there do. The actress then puts on her most intense face and fiercely whispers "I love you". Suddenly, we've wandered into bad Hollywood script territory. I can be quite critical of small things and obviously, this is quite a small gripe in an otherwise excellant film. It even got a tear or two out of me. For those unaware, I have been dubbed "dead inside" in the case of films so those tears are high praise indeed from my apparently cynical body. I'd recommend this film highly.