Review of Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire (2009) by Naomi S — 26 Nov 2014

Here's a film I probably should like, but I can't really say that I do. It's well-made. The acting is superb. Mo'Nique deserves the high praise she got for a really quite incredibly fearless performance.

Mariah Carey is even quite good ... she disappears into her role. I'm quite a fan of melodrama, and I like TV-movie-of-the-week redemption stories. Although I admire this film, I didn't really like it.

I think it has a lot to do with it's origin as a Oprah Winfrey/Tyler Perry co-production. It's really not in my wheel house. I would say that it seems to pass the normal boundaries of melodrama and moves into the realm of the really excessive.

Things aren't just hard for our protagonist ... or even really really hard ... they are unimaginably hard to the point of straining credulity. It also is sort of an odd homage to liberal bureaucratic institutions.

Where, in the past, religion would have been the source of our heroine's redemption, in this film, the modern social work/welfare establishment saves her. Truly a melodrama for the modern age.