name | Precious |
---|---|
director | Lee Daniels |
producer | {{ubl|Lee Daniels|Gary Magness|Sarah Siegel-Magness |
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, often shortened as Precious, is a 2009 American drama film directed by Lee Daniels. Precious is an adaptation by Geoffrey S. Fletcher of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film stars Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, and Mariah Carey. The film marked the acting debut of Sidibe.
The film, then without a distributor, premiered to acclaim at both the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, under its original title of Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire. At Sundance, it won the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for best drama, as well as a Special Jury Prize for supporting actress Mo'Nique. After Precious' screening at Sundance in February 2009, Tyler Perry announced that he and Oprah Winfrey would be providing promotional assistance to the film, which was released through Lions Gate Entertainment. Precious won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The film's title was changed from Push to Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, to avoid confusion with the 2009 action film Push. Precious was also an official selection at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival (particularly the Un Certain Regard category).
Lionsgate gave the film a limited release in North America on November 6, 2009 (the release was expanded on November 20). Precious received largely positive reviews from critics: the acting, the story, and its message were generally praised. Some criticism mainly aimed at fears of the film's content sending a negative message; some reviewers felt that the film did not live up to its hype. In the film's opening weekend in limited release, it grossed $1.8 million, putting it in 12th place at the box office. As of February 2010, the film had grossed over $47 million domestically, ranking no. 65 for 2009, recouping its $10 million budget, and making it a box office success. Precious received six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 82nd Academy Awards. Supporting actress Mo'Nique and screenwriter Geoffrey S. Fletcher won in their respective categories.
Following the discovery of Precious' second pregnancy, she is suspended from school. Her junior high school principal arranges to have her attend an alternative school, which she hopes can help Precious change her life's direction. Precious finds a way out of her traumatic daily existence through imagination and fantasy. In her mind, there is another world where she is loved and appreciated.
Inspired by her new teacher, Blu Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins learning to read. Precious meets sporadically with a social worker named Miss Weiss (Mariah Carey), who learns about incest in the household when Precious unwittingly conveys it to her. Precious gives birth to her second child and names him Abdul. While at the hospital, she meets John McFadden (Lenny Kravitz), a nursing assistant who shows kindness to her. After Mary (her mother) deliberately drops three-day-old Abdul and hits Precious, Precious fights back long enough to get her son and flees her home permanently. Shortly after leaving the house, Precious stops at a window of a church and watches the choir inside sing a Christmas song. She begins to imagine herself and her dream boyfriend singing a more upbeat version of the Christmas song. Later on, Precious breaks into her school classroom to get out of the cold and is discovered the following morning by Miss Rain. The teacher finds assistance for Precious, who begins raising her son in a halfway house while she continues academically.
Her mother comes back into her life to inform Precious that her father has died of AIDS. Later, Precious learns that she is HIV positive, but Abdul is not. Feeling dejected, Precious meets Miss Weiss at her office and steals her case file. Precious recounts the details of the file to her fellow students and has a new lease on life. Mary and Precious see each other for the last time in Miss Weiss' office, where Weiss questions Mary about her abuse of Precious, and uncovers specific physical and sexual traumas Precious encountered, starting when she was three. Mary begs Miss Weiss to help get Precious back, but she refuses upon finding out how much Precious was going through. The film ends with Precious still resolved to improve her life for herself and her children. She severs ties with her mother and plans to complete a General Educational Development (GED) test to receive a high school diploma equivalent.
Mariah Carey was cast as Ms. Weiss, Precious's social worker who supports her during her struggles. In September 2008, Carey described her character as "not really a likable person, but she does bring this to the surface." Carey and Daniels had previously worked together on Tennessee. Daniels said that he cast Carey because he was "so impressed" by her performance in Tennessee. Sapphire (the author of the novel) makes a cameo appearance as a woman at a day care center near the end of the film. According to director Daniels, Helen Mirren, who starred in his previous film Shadowboxer, was originally set to play the part of Ms. Weiss, but obtained a role in a "bigger project."
Paula Patton was cast as Ms. Blu Rain, Precious's alternative school teacher. Patton said that her character teaches Precious to "learn and read and write from the very beginnings, and pushes her to believe in herself, and pushes her to realize that anything is possible." Mo'Nique was cast as Mary Lee Johnston, Precious's mother, who is verbally and physically abusive. Mo'Nique and Daniels had previously worked together in Shadowboxer. Bill Sage was cast as Mr. Wicher. Sage had co-starred with Carey in Glitter, as well as previously working with Daniels on Tennessee. Robert De Niro's wife Grace Hightower was cast as a social worker; the film marks her film debut. She previously appeared on NYPD Blue.
In October 2007, Stephanie Andujar, 23, was cast as Rita, a 16-year-old former heroin addict and prostitute, who attends the same alternative school in Harlem as Precious and later befriends her. During Andujar's audition, Daniels was so impressed that he interrupted her dialogue and stated, "I want you in my movie." Lenny Kravitz was cast as John McFadden, a nurse who shows kindness to Precious. This film is Kravitz' feature film acting debut.
After Precious was screened at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in January, it was picked up for distribution by Lions Gate Entertainment and received promotional assistance from Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions and Tyler Perry's 34th Street Films. Precious was the first theatrical film to be affiliated with Perry's company. In February 2009, Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company filed lawsuits contesting ownership of the rights to release Precious. Both companies claim that they had purchased distribution rights to Precious: The Weinstein Company claimed that they had "secured" their rights while Lionsgate stated that they owned the rights to the film's distribution in North America. Precious sales agent Cinetic Media denied Weinstein's claims, stating that they failed to finalize the deal.
Lionsgate, in association with Matriarch/Geffen Records released the soundtrack online as a digital download on November 3, 2009, and in stores on November 23. Daniels confirmed that there are plans to release Blige's "I Can See in Color" as a single from the soundtrack. The song was written by Blige, Raphael Saadiq and LaNeah Menzies and is produced by Raphael Saadiq. People Magazine Daily noted that the film "mainly had a music supervised soundtrack, but not much of a score, so there were popular songs placed in the movie." Peter Travers, of Rolling Stone, described the song "I Can See In Color" as being "...a knockout song...expressing the goal of Precious to see the world in color."
After riding that three week wave of success, Precious began to see a decrease in box office earnings. However, the film holds the record as the highest grossing picture to open in fewer than 100 theaters and holds the record for the highest grossing average per screen for films shown in fewer than 50 theaters. Brandon Grey of Box Office Mojo described Precious as having had a "robust expansion" in its second week of release, and he confirmed that the film holds the record for having the second-highest grossing weekend for a movie playing at fewer than 200 sites, behind only Paranormal Activity. Precious grossed a total of $40,320,285 in over six weeks of release. The film opened at ninth place in the United Kingdom, with revenues totaling £259,000 in its opening weekend from limited release of 47 cinemas, generating a £5,552 screen average.
John Anderson, of Variety, said "to simply call it harrowing or unsparing doesn’t quite cut it" having felt that the film is "courageous and uncompromising, a shaken cocktail of debasement and elation, despair and hope." Anderson cited Carey's performance as "pitch perfect" and Patton's role as Ms. Blu Rain as "disarming." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, praised Carey's performance, describing it as having been "an authentically deglammed compassion" and praised the film for 'capturing' "how a lost girl rouses herself from the dead" and for Daniels' showing "unflinching courage as a filmmaker by going this deep into the pathologies that may still linger in the closets of some impoverished inner-city lives." Gleiberman described the film as being a movie "that makes you think, 'There but for the grace of God go I.' [...] It's a potent and moving experience, because by the end you feel you've witnessed nothing less than the birth of a soul" and felt that the "final scene of revelation" between Sidibe's and Mo'Nique's characters was strong enough to be able to leave viewers "tearful, shaken, [and] dazed with pity and terror."
Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, praised Mo'Nique and Sidibe's performances. Ebert described Mo'Nique's performance as being "frighteningly convincing" and felt that "the film is a tribute to Sidibe's ability to engage our empathy" because she "completely creates the Precious character." He noted that Carey and Patton "are equal with Sidibe in screen impact". Ebert praised Daniels because rather than casting the actors for their names, "he was able to see beneath the surface and trust that they had within the emotional resources to play these women, and he was right." Betsey Sharkey, of the Los Angeles Times describes the film as being a "rough-cut diamond... [A] rare blend of pure entertainment and dark social commentary, it is a shockingly raw, surprisingly irreverent and absolutely unforgettable story." Claudia Puig, of USA Today says that while there are "melodramatic moments" in the film, the cast gives "remarkable performances" to show the audiences the film's "inspiring message." Peter Travers, of Rolling Stone called Mo'Nique "dynamite", a performance that "tears at your heart."
Mary Pols of Time praised the film's fantasy sequences for being able to show the audience a "joyous Wizard of Oz energy" that is able to "open the door into Precious's mind in a way even [the author] Sapphire couldn't." Pols felt that, while not implying that the film has "a lack of compelling emotional material" but that the film's "few weak moments" are the "ones that dovetail with typical inspirational stories." Marshall Fine, of Huffington Post, praised the film as being "a film that doesn't shy away from the depths to which human beings can sink, but it also shows the strength and resilience of which we are capable, even at our lowest moments." Scott Mendelson, also of the Huffington Post, felt that when you put the "glaring issues aside," the film "still works as a potent character study and a glimpse inside a world we'd rather pretend does not exist in America." But while the film "succeeds as a powerful acting treat and a potent character study, there are some major narrative issues that prevent the film from being an accidental masterpiece." Mendelson described the film as being "an acting powerhouse" based on its many emotional themes.
Veteran critic Jack Mathews wrote, "Without being familiar with the source material, you really have no idea how much work went into the adaptation or how well it was done.... 'Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire'...First-time screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher did yeoman's work turning Sapphire's graphic, idiomatic novel into a coherent and inspiring story about the journey of an abused Harlem teenager.""
Precious has also received some negative responses from critics. Writing for the New York Press, Armond White compared the film to The Birth of a Nation as "demeaning the idea of black American life", saying it was the "con job of the year". In two separate articles, The New York Times cited White's article as the most powerful negative review, adding that in a recent interview he had remarked that the film's popularity is due to the fact that "black pathology sells". Courtland Milloy, of The Washington Post said Precious was "a film of prurient interest that has about as much redeeming social value as a porn flick." David Edelstein, of New York Magazine, commented that while the film has "elements" that are "powerful and shocking", he felt the movie was "programmed" and that the film had "its own study guide." Keith Uhlich, of Time Out New York, felt that the film did not live up to its "long hype", and felt that it was "bewildering" to discover the film's praise at the Sundance Film Festival because Uhlich characterized the film as having "shrug-worthiness." Dana Stevens of Slate felt that the film's "eagerness" to "drag" the audience "through the lower depths of human experience" leaves the audience "with no space to be able to come to their own conclusions." Stevens noted that while the film is about improvement and self-actualisation, "it wields an awfully large cudgel." Peter Bradshaw wrote for The Guardian that the film catalogues a "horrendous, unending nightmare of abuse" and then abruptly turns into an episode of Fame. Sukhdev Sandhu said in The Daily Telegraph that he found the film "a dispiriting mix of cliché and melodrama", although he acknowledged that the film does feature some superb acting.
Category:2009 films Category:American films Category:English-language films Category:2000s drama films Category:HIV/AIDS in film and television Category:American drama films Category:Films about dysfunctional families Category:Films based on novels Category:Films directed by Lee Daniels Category:Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winning performance Category:Films set in 1987 Category:Films set in the 1980s Category:Films set in New York City Category:Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award Category:Harpo Productions Category:Incest in fiction Category:Lions Gate Entertainment films Category:Films about educators
ca:Precious (pel·lícula) da:Precious de:Precious – Das Leben ist kostbar es:Precious (película) fa:پرشس (فیلم) fo:Precious fr:Precious it:Precious (film) he:פרשס lt:Meilutė (filmas) nl:Precious (film) ja:プレシャス (映画) no:Precious pl:Hej, skarbie pt:Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire ru:Сокровище (фильм, 2009) sk:Precious sr:Драгоцена fi:Precious sv:Precious (film) th:พรีเชียส tr:Acı Bir Hayat Öyküsü uk:Скарб (фільм, 2009) zh:天生不是寶貝This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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