review on Precious

The movie Precious is about how Clareece Precious Jones endured pains through out her whole life. Having been abused and mistreated by her own family, this movie is a perfect eye-opener for those people who are happily leading their life without feeling grateful for what they have been blessed with. There are two major issues addressed in this movie which are dysfunctional family institution and humanistic responsibility.

Dysfunctional of family institution is depicted from the beginning until the end of this movie. It started out with Mary, Precious biological mother abusing her in every way possible; physically, mentally as well as sexually. Her mother abused her with cruel insults, imperious commands, and, whenever possible, she hit her with heavy airborne objects. Mary as a mother insulted her own daughter to the extent of saying she is stupid, fat and ugly and in addition to that she sexually abused Precious when she asked Precious to “take care” of her. Next in Precious dysfunctional family institution is her father. Being absent for most of his daughter’s life, proven when Precious told her social worker “I don't know much more than you do” about her father, we can easily picture how outsider her father is to her. He only came home when there are things worthwhile to come back for, and in this case he came back as a rapist to his own daughter. As an irresponsible husband and father, on top of that committing incest to his own daughter, audience wondered how her father has ever been allowed to come home by her mother. If “dysfunctional family” needs to be define, Clareece Precious Jones’s family is the best paradigm.

Secondly in this movie, the issue is humanistic responsibility. As a human, we are bound to feel responsible and to feel compassionate to another human being regardless as a family or as a stranger. That is why it is a relief for the audience to see Precious got helped by Ms. Rain and Mrs. Weiss. The world would be more beautiful if there are more people to care about others like those two characters. In this movie, humanity is not just shown by Ms. Rain and Mrs. Weiss, there are others who stretched their hands to her and fell for her abysmal life. Mr. McFadden, the nursing assistant, Ms. Rain’s assistant, Precious Alternative School classmates had shown the importance of humanity in every human. Those who felt responsible towards others led a happier life, proven by every single ‘nice’ character in this movie. “Radiating happiness will magnetize the happiness to come back” which is exactly what Rhonda Byrne wrote in her book The Secret, in the chapter The Secret to Life. If Lee Daniels and Sapphire wish the audience to learn something from this movie, it is definitely to generate more generosity among humans so that there will be people like Precious whom will be given second chance to happiness.

This movie revolves mostly around female characters making feminism as an inevitable element in it. We can clearly see how Precious own mother goes directly against the nature of mothers; by abusing her, letting her daughter to be raped, insulting her daughter and the list goes on. Since the ancient times, women are described as the passive, soft-hearted, submissive, and most importantly, nurturing but that is not what the audience has been served with by the character of Mary. On the other hand, Ms. Rain is exactly what feminine defines women; soft, passionate, responsible, and in this case, most importantly, motherly. The ugly act that Precious’s father did to her, exploited his daughter for sex is what feminism is fighting for. Exploitation of women has been featured as the strongest blow to destroy woman and because of that the issue of feminism has been brought up in this movie, to awaken the pretend-to-sleep mothers out there whom are still covering their husband for the horrifying crime.

There are things that I liked about this movie but there are things that I disliked about it as well. I liked the way Sapphire reveal the truth about life in the real world. The issue is that this just not happen in Harlem as today it happens everywhere around the globe, even in Malaysia and the deadly punishment did not scare most of the criminals. The revelation is scary yet people need to know life is not a straight line to everyone. There are people who need our help and there are people who can lend their hands. Precious has every right in the world to stay angry to her parents for her ordeals because by forgiving them, she would open the chance to be hurt again. The mistake that some people commit is that they think everyone deserves forgiveness. Try to envision if Precious let her mother get near her children ever again and daunting thoughts will fill our heads. That is how disturbing the effect of this movie is and yet that is how effective the message is delivered to the audience. What I did not liked about this movie is that the ugly images shown when Precious father forced her, when her mother asked her to “please” her, those images are the images that ruined the beautiful characters of parents therefore it is too disturbing how poverty has affected some people. An article categorized the disturbing part in the movie as poverty porno.

Would I recommend this movie to others to watch? My answer is definitely yes. It is a perfect eye-opener for those who sit comfortably out there without any feeling of alarm of this issue. Some people think such calamities only happen in movies, rarely in real life therefore they chose to think it would never happen to them. They need to watch this movie to get to know the truth about life.