Despite its laughably pretentious title, Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire is one of the most harrowing films you will ever see, with one of the most monstrous villains in movie history. Yet it earns both a levity and a hope that somehow never feels out of place, an almost impossible balancing act to pull off. It is an indomitable movie about an indomitable human spirit.

Set in Harlem in 1987, the film is the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), an obese 16-year-old African-American girl who is pregnant for the second time by her own father. Now that her father has abandoned the family (and, as we later find out, is dying of AIDS), Precious waits hand and foot on her welfare-queen mother (Mo’Nique), a venomously wrathful woman who sees her innocent daughter as the usurper of her grotesque husband’s affections and in retaliation, brutally abuses her daughter emotionally and physically.

Precious is expelled from her junior high school for being pregnant and sent to an alternative school where it is discovered that she can neither read nor write. Precious may not know what alternative means, but she feels intuitively that a change for the better is right around the corner. Her new teacher, Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), is firm yet loving and starts Precious on a journey that will take her from the darkness of maltreatment and helplessness to the light of affection and self-determination.

Not exactly the feel good movie of the year, eh? You might be surprised. This holiday release, weighted down with issues of incest, physical and emotional abuse, and AIDS is permeated with a surprising lightheartedness, striking a perfect balance between heaven and hell. While much of this comes from situational comedy—especially Precious’ colorful new family composed of her equally imperiled classmates—the majority is found in first-time director Lee Daniels’ visual style. In the midst of her most heinous assaults, Precious’ mind leaves her body, retreating to a safe and imaginary place where she is a paparazzi-plagued celebrity, a music diva, a model with boy toys, basically anyone than who she really is. These almost Amèlie-esque moments, like the film itself, are both hilarious and heartbreaking—as when Precious looks into the mirror and sees a beautiful, skinny white girl looking back—and give us some clue into how Precious has survived a life of which most of us are incapable of conceiving and find almost impossible to believe still exists in the greatest city of the most powerful country on earth.

Precious narrates her film, though not in the conventional sense. Her words do not inform or drive the action, they comment upon it, a stream of consciousness style lifted straight from the novel. These monologues convince us that, although she doesn’t speak much, Precious has a lot to say. Beneath her passive, mask-like expression is a curious young woman soaking up everything she sees and hears, filing it away in the knowledge that her life, shattered as it is, is still embryonic and capable of greatness—or even just averageness—yet. That she should feel this, in the midst of these sorts of circumstances, is astonishing.

Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe gives a riveting performance as Precious, so realistic and self-aware that one cannot conceive of the actress as being anything other than the character she plays. The beautiful Paula Patton is simply incandescent as Precious’ teacher and mother figure. And musical superstars Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carey give sober, confident performances as a nurse and social worker respectively. But as universally terrific as their performances are, one, above all others, will pin you breathlessly to your seat. Give Mo’Nique the Best Supporting Actress Oscar right now. Heck, while you’re at it, just give her all the others too. Her portrayal as Precious’ abomination of a mother is simply colossal. You won’t see a better performance this or any year. Somewhere, someone is already engraving her Academy Award.

Precious is so traumatic that you shouldn’t be surprised if your emotions are too battered even to produce tears. The act of weeping may simply prove to be too much for your shell-shocked system to handle. And yet, this vibrantly honest and resoundingly hopeful film might just, against all odds, see you off with a smile and a glowing heart.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.