With all of the new movies that have been advertised in the last couple of months, one film has stood out to me. "Precious" is a new film based on the book “Push” written by an African American poet and writer known as Sapphire. The main character of the movie and book is Precious, an overweight 16-year-old African American girl living in Harlem. She portrays a troubled teen that goes through an extremely harsh life with her father and mother as well as society. Precious must endure intense feelings of rage and sorrow as she is pregnant for the second time by her absent father and abused by her mother. This movie focuses on the feelings of any person that has been degraded or underestimated.
Several popular actors and actresses are involved in the movie. Precious’ character is actually played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe (pronounced SIH-deh-bay). Sidibe learned about the role from her mother who is an R&B singer. After reading through the script for the audition, she spoke with the director Lee Daniels who instantly asked her to be a part of his film. Other actresses in the film include Mo’Nique who plays Precious’ mother and Mariah Carey who plays the welfare caseworker. Many people know Mo’Nique for her comedic acts, but this film just shows how diverse Mo’Nique really is.
Reviews for the movie are quite diverse. Comments range from praise of the film to criticisms about whether or not a movie should portray such harmful stories and images. From comments that I have seen about the movie, I get the impression that it is very emotionally charged and moving for viewers.
I have watched other movies that reveal the horrors that sometimes occur in our society. Other controversial films such as “Boys Don’t Cry” featuring Hilary Swank are extremely hard to watch because of the content, but those movies are very moving at the same time. Even though the film touches base with so many controversial and harsh topics, I am quite interested to see it.
What are your feelings about “Precious”? Would you be interested in seeing the movie? Have you seen other controversial movies?
I have to agree that there are a lot of great-looking movie previews out there right now! The best part about the majority of the previews I have seen is that they are for those feel good types of movies. They are the types of movies that renew my faith in the goodness of humanity. Besides Precious, I also have The Blind Side on my list of movies that I want to see this holiday season.
ReplyDeleteIt is nice when movies come out in a genre other than horror and violence. Perhaps we would see a decline in those types of activities if more positive activities were portrayed on television and in the movies more often…
I'm curious to see this movie, but I don't know if I will. I thought maybe I'd read the book first, but then I thought maybe that might actually be more traumatic than watching the movie. It seems that disturbing books I've read sear into my memory even more so than movie images, probably because I read the words and then my brain has to formulate a mental image to go along with them. I read the book "A Boy Called It" and "Sybill" and both of those books scarred my brain because of the horrible abuse those two people endured. I don't know if I can handle another story about the horrors humans inflict on other humans. I nearly puked when I read "A Boy Called It."
ReplyDeleteEden,
ReplyDeleteI’m glad you wrote about this! I too am interested in seeing this movie. I love movies that deal with emotions and that are above all, different then every other movie you’ve already watched. Have you read the book Push? I think I would be more interested in reading the book than watching the movie. I love books and in my case I always seem to like the book better than the movie. I also really like when movies use newcomers instead of well-known actors and actresses. It’s just fresh and interesting. Almost all of the actors used in one of my favorite television shows, Skins, have no professional acting experience and were found in open castings.