This film is rubbish. Will one critic please have the decency to admit that the film is crap, and not by resorting to criticism on grounds of stereotypical race/class portrayals.



It is simply a bad film. The attempts at humour are atrocious. The writing and direction are clunky. Monique's performance is boiled ham. The film is manipulative is the worst way, aiming to make you squirm in your seat with its confrontational manner. It is a sickly combination of heavy-handed sentimentality and heavy-handed grim.

Do movie stories need an unambiguously ‘happy ending’ Mark, rather than ‘all Shawshank and little redemption’ as you put it. Are all stories capable of having a happy ending?



One of the bleakest films in a social realist vein I’ve seen was Nil By Mouth; though it had some optimism at the end.; possibly as Precious does also (I haven’t seen it yet, but do know of the book it is based on.)



The ending of Ken Loache’s Kes in the 1960s was quite bleak. In terms of the life in the ghettos of American cities The Wire on TV didn’t have any ‘feel-good factor’ or happy endings, but was praised for its unflinching gaze at reality.



As a society we now know full well that some families are dysfunctional beyond belief.

I can think of two recent high profile cases from the UK in the past few years, that remind me of ‘Precious’, of (white) men having several children by their own daughters and ruling their lives and those of their wives through brutality and fear.



Precious may not have much ‘feel-good factor’, but some lives don’t either; surely cinema should be able to depict society warts and all as well as also having well an uplifting and entertaining role.

Having just watched Precious yesterday I agree a lot with what Dr K is saying here. In terms of performance, Monique (a comedian I was not familiar with) was, and I say this without being hyperbolic, one of cinemas greatest villains. However the performance is so good that when she has her confessional moment towards the end of the film it was almost as heartbreaking as the torment that she had put her daughter through. I have since seen some of her stand up and can't believe it is the same person.



Likewise, Gabourey Sidibe is a real revelation. In a world in which Hollywood loves films that can be sold as downtrodden, underdog, Oscar-baiting stories think how easy it would have been to cast, say, Halle Berry, made her look slightly less attractive with make up, and then planted bums on seats through marketing? Think of the emotional weight the film would have lost. Sidibe is both passive and distant but at the same time completely engaging.



The heart rendering moments of the film, which there are many, are all displayed hideously and without much compromise. I'd like to point out the scene that Mark talked about in which Precious is forced to eat by her mother. I think the shots that proceed this moment also need mentioning. Almost as bad as the psychological horror of that scene the close ups of the fatties foods boiling in pots of grease almost made me want to be sick. Hats of to cinematographers Andrew Dunn and Darren Lew for making you almost be able to smell the grease.



However I disagree with Mark in the fact that I do think it is quite funny in places, mostly derived from the bonding and friendship that Precious develops at the Each One Teach One class. For me, those scenes were the relieving moments of escape from the torturous home life instead of the flights of fantasy, which could be a little heavy handed and jarring at times.



Another minor criticism I have about the film is that I think that Daniels occasionally wants to impress as a director a little too much, which sometimes breaks up the emotion of the film. The excessive use of jump cuts, slow motion and other stylistic flourishes are at best unnecessary and at worst distracting. These would include the fantasy sequences (although the fantasy sequence of Precious looking in the mirror and seeing the skinny white girl was amazingly executed and downright powerful).



All in all though this was a brilliantly put together piece of film, with huge praise put upon the principal cast, and it really needs to be recognised by the Academy. Because if Avatar wins best picture/director it will confirm the fact that the awards are just bought and sold.

BillPaxtonsSecondBiggestFan.

I haven't seen Monique's performance in Precious (but looking forward to doing so, if that's the right phrasing) but Stephen King called Felicia Pearson's performance as Snoop in The Wire "perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series" I'm sure both are equally good.

https://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/24/the.wire.season.five



Perhaps people that really know the background and type of characters they portray on-screen bring extra authenticity to their roles? Pearson is an ex street drug dealer and convicted teenage killer (now 'born again') from the Baltimore ghettos.

The same applies to Gary Oldman, writer & director of the film Nil by Mouth, it was about his father's alcoholism and domestic violence.



If you haven't seen Snoop in The Wire there's a clip here. (Advisory, contains swearing.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8zavPW3Bus



Social realism used to be an identifiable genre in cinema. As society becomes more complex, and possibly more horrific, is it dying out at the expense of ‘feel-good factor’ escapism? What does that say about us as a society?

RE Armond White



This is a vague attempt to stick up for Armond White the film critic who was quoted first in an interview with Lee Daniels the director of Precious, who said that Precious was denigrating for African Americans, then went on to say that good examples of African American films include Norbit, Meet Dave and Little Man... Something which is near enough impossible to stick up for. Another Armond White 'blooper' is stating that Twilight is a better vampire film than 'Let The Right One In'.



I personally always enjoy reading Armond White's film critiques, not that I agree with them in the slightest. I am of the belief that one of the role's of a film critic is to encourage debate about film, and I believe Armond White has got people talking aspects of film and comparing films which would not have otherwise been mentioned in the same breath.



I felt Kermode did a wonderful job to sidestep the issue of race which many say is a key issue to the film, was done with great political sensitivity. Is the issue of race in Precious as relevant as Armond White made it out to be?

Hi Mark,



Just off the topic of Precious, there are a number of films which I, and I'm sure many others, would like to know your opinion of however there are too many to mention. Would it be possible for you to do an occasional 'classic review' of a suggested classic film here on the blog? For example; Straw Dogs or The Birds. It would be thoroughly interesting as we only occasionally hear your thoughts on past films.



Kind Regards



Tom Durrant

I liked the movie,very good performances,specially by Mo'Nique.



RioBravo ,i don't know what are you talking about,maybe you've seen another movie.It's possible that these type of movies don't fit your style,but calling it rubbish,its too much my friend.Then what about the really rubbish movies?



One thing i'd like to add,is that i disagree with almost any movie critic about the day dreaming sequences of Gabourey Sidibe.The critics seem to love those scenes,by i thought they really were the weak parts of the movie.Once you get involved with the story and the characters,then a dream comes on and spoils the whole feeling.Yes i get it that it's supposed to be an escape routine for precious,so in that case it's badly executed and that's the director's fault.



Overall a good movie,nothing too special,and people should give more credit to Paula Patton's performance as teacher Ms. Rain.Very solid portrayal of working-class hero.

RioBravo, I totally agree with you.



This film made me feel physically angry. It's a sick way to bully and penalize Western audiences for racist stereotypes and other things.



The fact that Oprah Winfrey presents and executively produces the film says only one thing; feel guilty and give us your money.



It was like a 2 hour advert for child abuse. It's a terrible film that runs like a boring morbid checklist......Incest - Check, Rape - Check, Obesity - Check, AIDS - Check and so on.



'Precious' is one of the most over-rated piles of rubbish I've seen in ages.



Soulless Oscar fodder.

OK defeis. You've got me. The film is not rubbish. The film is just bad. Despite this, it is regarded as so worthy that virtually every critic at least gives it a pass to avoid spoiling the party.



There are worse films, but I rarely see them because there's no point. The worst film I saw last year was Harry Brown, and Precious is better than that. but The second worst film I saw last year was The Soloist, which is better than Precious.



It would great to have a film with unconventional people in big roles that I could champion along with everyone else. The film would still have to be good, and this one is bad.

Yet another post only visible in the Uk, this is rubbish - neither kermode nor some publicity still meant for advertising should be a problem to show everybody. Get with it BBC

(or someone rip it and upload it elsewhere)

RE 21cwh04

I don't know how you see this film is a sick way to bully Western audiences. The first film that I drew comparisons with when I saw Precious was Trainspotting, both in elements of overlapping subject matter (poverty, trapped lifestyles and the brief ray of hope in the end) and stylistically (although I have to admit Boyle's film handled the visual florishes more effectively). But no one is going to say Trainspotting is made to evoke, say, English guilt for Scotland. Instead both films are explorations of lives that did, and do still, exist and the should have fair representation in cinema.

This isn't a film that we are meant to watch and think, "Oh poor black people, they have it so tough." Instead we're meant to connect with Precious as a person and her personal situation. It'd take an ignorant mind to think this is some kind of secret conspircacy orcastrated by Oprah Winfrey to gain sympathy, support and money for African Americans. Although Race is a big part of this film I see it more as a film about poverty, set in one of the most impoverished parts of the USA, which happens to be mainly populated by black people.

'Is the issue of race in Precious as relevant as Armond White made it out to be?' Comment 5.



C. Jeffrey Wright, a black American minister, has argued that with so few black-oriented films released and such a paucity of black lives seen on screen (White's list of Next Day Air, Cadillac Records, Meet Dave, Norbit, Little Man, Akeelah and the Bee, First Sunday, The Ladykillers, Marci X, Palindromes, Mr. 3000 illustrates this) Precious was held to an impossibly high standard, obliged to be all things to all viewers: gripping drama and positive example.



Wright argues that had more, different kinds of black experience been explored in movies, this film's resolutely downbeat story would have seemed less like self-hatred paraded for the edification of liberal white folks.



Wright forcibly makes a case: "...that there is a deceptive (and potentially destructive) invisibility in media of Blacks with 'achiever values'. This lack of positive Black figures in the media fails to provide a context for Precious and the many other media images we have to consume."



"The danger, then, becomes distortion both within the group (young Blacks, to their detriment, think this is pervasive 'reality') and without (Whites think these portrayals are reality too and establish within themselves opinions that range from racist superiority complexes to liberal pity and guilt)."

https://www.urbanfaith.com/2009/11/why-precious-is-dangerous.html



Critic Shane Danielsen sees Wright's view as: "...the flipside of White's argument: that Precious is bad art not for the crudeness of its technique (by far the most common complaint among white reviewers), but because it sets a bad example for how black Americans want to see themselves represented."

https://artsandentertainment.independentminds.livejournal.com/1020960.html



To return to the issue of social realism cinema - and British cinema.



In the UK in recent years we've seen the Baby P case, the Shannon Matthews family, the two young Doncaster boys that tortured two other boys (there have been several similar cases dating back to the James Bulger case), a white Sheffield man who fathered nine children by raping his two daughters over many years; it is know that white boys from poor backgrounds do worst at school, there is concern over areas of high unemployment about levels of alcohol and drug abuse, about the number single parents and so on.



It's possible that the debates that films such as Precious raise are less to do with race and more to with the growth of an underclass, both of some blacks and some whites.



Yet British cinema is mainly silent on these issues; they form the background to films such as Kidulthood, Trainspotting, The Football Factory, Harry Brown etc but with little to no exploration as why this has happened - the few exceptions I can think of are Shane Meadows' This is England and some of the films by Ken Loach.

RioBravo

I guess our definition of a bad movie differs a lot.Certainly precious is not the best movie of this year,it might not even be very good,but it's still decent film making.



I'm really surprised you mentioned harry brown,a movie which i really liked.Performances specially from Michael Caine are very good,i don't think even you can disagree on that.It's a good solid story,good characters and slow dramatic pace that gets into you.Again,it's far from perfect but rubbish?..moving on.



I would agree with you about the soloist,though it's not totally rubbish,it didn't deliver on so many levels,and the more Jamie Foxx was trying hard to convince the more the movie was suffering.



"There are worse films, but I rarely see them because there's no point"



I agree with you in some cases.Why would someone watch The Hottie & the Nottie when you know in advance it's going to suck.

Then again,when you have samuel jackson,eva mendes,Scarlett Johansson directed by the guy that gave you sin city,you probably don't expect to get an abomination like the spirit.

When de niro makes a new movie,i usually watch it due to his history(not that he's on his peak)but i didn't expect to get "What Just Happened"



The Final Destination ,My Life in Ruins,Dragonball Evolution ,Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ,Year One ...now there you have some of the finest pieces of garbage ever released.That's what i call rubbish,and in no way i can put those movies in the same caliber as harry brown.It's just silly,for me at least.



On the subject of precious bullying western audiences , BillPaxtonsSecondBiggestFan nailed it,i completely agree.

@ Perless > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmRgD8eWuDo

Found this link after reading Roger Ebert's blog about Armond White, though it might be of interest:



https://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1897/armondwhiteisntinsane.jpg

@jayfurneux



Great perspective provided, fantastic work and some excellent quotes provided.



There was a piece on the Guardian website about the lack of accolades for female directors, and I felt that piece in particular was blindsighted towards multiculturalism and the lack of of representation from minorities in cinema. Even if there are not films made by female directors there are films made for a female audience, however there is a serious lack of coverage of ethnic minorities in film all together.



The films mentioned by Armond White in some ways are better examples of on screen coverage of African American lives than the ones in Precious and in some ways I do agree that there is a lack of African American role models to provide a counter to the ones seen in Precious. Maybe Precious itself isn't responsible for these things, but maybe it is part of the problem or it is simply just about poverty.



As for the film itself, as for it's somewhat bleak nature 'less uplifting' films have been documented in cinema for many a year, to great acclaim in the Apu Trilogy by Ray, Ken Loach, and in recent times the Dardenne Brothers. It's lack of 'feel good factor' is not a factor which should determine whether it is a good film or not.



The world around us is full of horrors, and if cinema avoids documenting the horrors then it will fail to provide it's credentials as a medium for artistic integrity. Not every film succeeds in it's satisfying it's intentions but it is important that film makers are ambitious. Which is maybe something to say about Lee Daniel and Precious.....

This is Armond White's review of Of Time and The City, which does indicate he does like some 'proper' films!



https://www.nypress.com/article-19299-of-time-and-the-city.html



Read the article if you can Kermode, his love for Terence Davies is clear....

I have to say that maybe the whole point of Precious may seem to be that the small hope of the film arises specifically from her awful situation rather than her situation preventing her from hoping.

Like Mark said, theres a lot of shawshank with the redemption, but i think specifically that in both films we may feel there is no redemption without the shawshank.



Lloyd