Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire - "Precious Few Things To Love"

Screenplay by Geoffry Fletcher
Directed by Lee Daniels

Precious is heartbreaking. Not only because the subject matter it deals with is a girl who is abused mentally and physically throughout the picture, but because it misses the mark as a film as well. ‘Based on the novel Push by Sapphire’ is based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire and tells the story of an obese 16 year old girl living in Harlem in the 1980’s who goes by the name “Precious”. Precious (newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) lives alone with her mother Mary (Mo’Nique), though she has a child with Down syndrome affectionately called “mongo” (short for mongoloid) that her Grandmother brings over whenever the social worker makes a stop by the dingy apartment. Precious is also now pregnant with her second child, both of which were the product of being raped by her faceless, never seen father. Oh, and her father gave her HIV-AIDS. In short, it’s the feel good movie of the year.

Dealing with such serious and heavy subject matter, the film has to find a balance so it doesn’t end up like a Paul Schrader film. This balance is provided by the opportunity Precious is given by being kicked out of her public school for being pregnant again (don’t worry, it gets better). Her former principal thinks she would benefit from a “leg up” program called Each One Teach One to work toward her GED, and after some hesitation and some stolen fried chicken, she decides to attend. There, the film becomes a cookie cutter inspirational teacher film as she eventually makes pals with the other students and under the tutelage of her teacher Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) learns to write about her life. Through this personal journal, she goes on a personal journey to redemption.

It is in voice over of what these diaries contain that we learn the most about who Precious is and what her innermost thoughts are. What strikes me as inconsistent is that while the scrawling we see in her book onscreen is simple, the narration expounds exponentially. It seems that the voice over is supposed to be the audience’s guide to the wonderful things she is writing, but we never get an indication that it is actually in her book. The opening credit sequence is done so that the audience sees how Precious would write it in her illiterate penmanship with the actual information spelled and written correctly in parenthesis. Perhaps we are supposed to be hearing cleaned up narration, like what she would be saying if she knew how? But then, the monologues are still so rough and dialectically correct for her character, so I don’t think that’s the case.

There are a number of continuity and time period errors in the film that I won’t get into nitpicking, but one has be mentioned because it plays a huge role in the film. When Precious steals fried chicken from a restaurant on her way to her first day of the new school, she grabs the bucket of chicken from the counter and makes a mad dash out of the restaurant leaving behind her journal notebook and pen. The following scene has Ms. Rain explaining the importance of the writing assignment at length, and the students begin to take out their books to begin writing. My first instinct was “Oh no! Precious left hers behind!” But right after, Precious magically takes out her assignment book and begins to write. No mention is made of the error. It really bothered me to my core and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Especially because when I noticed the book being left behind, we know her name is on that book and someone at the restaurant or better yet, the police, could have tracked her pilfering ass down. This is yet another thing about that scene that is completely ignored.

Throughout the film, the screen goes black momentarily for seemingly no reason. This is independent low-budget filmmaking so maybe it was an editing choice to cover a lack of footage. Or maybe it was an artistic choice. Regardless, I found it distracting as there was no cohesive reason to do this. We already have a series of fantasy sequences that Precious indulges in when trying to escape her life into her mind’s eye, usually of herself as a famous movie star or glamorous model. These scenes work to solidify her character’s need for escape and a creative mind that doesn’t know how to unleash itself onto the outside world (or that such a thing is even possible) as well as address her own insecurities with self image. They’re used to good effect but at a certain point they stop telling us more about her and just become monotonous.

In a film where technical aspects are lacking, something must be a saving grace. For this film, it is the acting by its stars, Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe. Gabourey walks through the film in a zombie-like haze most of the time, either from depression or not understanding what is going on around her, fitting Precious to a T. Mo’Nique is even better, the shining star of the whole film. Her portrayal of Mary is real, raw, and ultimately understandable. You hate her for being what she is, but you know and sympathize because it’s so true to life’s real villains. When she breaks down in the end trying to explain how she just wants to be loved, you can’t help but feel heartbreaking anger for this pathetic, weak individual. The film’s ending is somewhat abrupt; some issues, like the mother/daughter dynamic, are dealt with but others linger in the air left for us to only wonder where it will go. Still, while there was little else to be enthused about in the film, Mo’Nique delivers a powerhouse performance that is all too rare even in good films.


*** Three Stars – Take it or leave it

Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire is in theaters now and the Golden Globe awards announced it today as one of their nominees for Best Picture - Drama.

Adam Resurrected – “The Day the Clown Cried”

Directed by Paul Schrader

Screenplay by Noah Stollman based on the novel by Yoram Kaniuk

In 1972 Jerry Lewis made a film called “The Day the Clown Cried” about a Jewish clown in WWII-era Germany who is put into a concentration camp. He ends up being used by the Nazis for entertaining children, gaining their trust so he can lead them to the gas chamber. It is infamous in film circles as an unfinished, unreleased film for obvious reasons. “Adam Resurrected”, based on the 1968 novel “Adam Ben Kelev” (“Man, son of a dog” literally translated from Hebrew) by Yoram Kaniuk, addresses similar subject matter. Here, a clown is again juxtaposed against the horrors of the Holocaust. However instead of a distasteful farce, we see a moving and all too human portrait of the torture that the concentration camps inflicted, including the lasting effects it had on those who survived.

Adam Stein is played by Jeff Goldblum, who sheds most of the clichéd quirks we have come to expect from him over the years. He loses himself in the role creating levels of both sadness and joy, sometimes piled on top of one another. As the film opens we find out Adam, living in 1960’s Israel, has recently almost killed a woman during a magic trick, and is headed back to a mental institution for unstable survivors where he has spent most of the last 10 years. Adam has a run of the joint; the other patients treat him like a king, the doctors let him work out his own treatments, he sneaks alcohol from behind air conditioning vents, and the head nurse (Ayelet Zurer) even carries on an affair with him. But he cannot escape the torture that is bottled up inside.

It is at this point the film begins to flash back to life for Adam in Germany. In the 20’s he was a huge star, headlining his own circus and magic show. He had a wife and two daughters, who supported his act. But as the Nazi party rises in a beautiful sequence showing how his audience changes over a 5-10 year period, it is no longer appropriate for such a revered entertainer to also be a Jew. And so, Adam and his family end up in a concentration camp. Commandant Klein (Willem Dafoe) recognizes Adam from his show, and has him act like a dog for his amusement. This begins a long scarring period of humiliation for Adam where he is given “preferential” treatment by Klein by acting just like a pet dog, where he crawls on all fours, begs for scraps, and wears a choke collar. All the while he begs for his family to be spared due to his compliance. These flashback sequences are portrayed in stark black and white, a clean and elegant cinematography comparable to Schindler’s List, while the rest of the film is lit in a modern, muted color palette.

Director Schrader is no stranger to dark material. I’ll admit this is the first film of his I sat through since feeling like my brain needed a bath seeing “Auto Focus” in the theater. Schrader is famously the screenwriter of such dark psyche-delving material as “Taxi Driver”, “Hardcore”, and “American Gigolo”. Here, working from someone else’s screenplay, he strikes an excellent balance between the horrors that exist in humanity and hope for those who can live through such things. Hope for Adam comes from being forced to finally confront his “dog days”, and while forcing humanity on a feral fellow inmate, he has a chance at finding redemption himself.

There is a reoccurring theme throughout the film of Purim, probably the silliest holiday on the Jewish calendar. It is mentioned several times in different sequences, and the climax of the film takes place on this day. Purim is a day of joyous drinking, wearing masks, and celebrating survival in the face of near destruction. The holiday is about pointing out how what is on the surface is separate from what is inside or what we could be at our best. It is an apt metaphor that ties together the themes of life and death, suffering and celebration that resurrects Adam.

****1/2 Four and a half stars – Definitely See This Film

Adam Resurrected, after having an almost non-existent run in theaters, was recently released on DVD and Blu-ray and can also be watched streaming online through Netflix.