Clareece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is a high-school girl with nothing working in her favor. She is pregnant with her father's child—for the second time. She can't read or write, and her schoolmates tease her for being fat. Her home life is a horror, ruled by a mother (Mo'Nique) who keeps her imprisoned both emotionally and physically. Precious's instincts tell her one thing: if she's ever going to break from the chains of ignorance, she will have to dig deeply into her own resources.

Ugly. This is the only word that I could come up with to describe the movie. Precious is ugliness, it’s the ugliness that resides in every human being, the ugliness that resides in society all wrapped into a film that is ugly itself. Precious is a film devoid of hope, devoid of humanity, devoid of anything good in mankind and in the end without hope without goodness all that is left is the most bitter, most hateful side of mankind the ugly side. The film made me feel sick, it made me feel sad, it made me fell disgusted and while it made me feel it could not make me like it, it could not make me appreciate it and could never make me recommend it to someone else to see.

After seeing the film I did a little research on the movie and the book it was based upon to see if the events in the film were based on a real person. I am not sure why I did this, I don’t think knowing that the story might be true would make it any better or worse for that matter as it is hard to like a film that is all about ugliness whether that ugliness really exists or not. And sadly yes the person of Clareece Precious Jones is based on a real person which might make it a little sadder that something this horrid could really happen and that no one was able to stop it. Sapphire is the literary teacher that ran across the real Precious and wrote her story while trying to help underprivileged students gain their GED’s in Harlem.

I think the thing the bothered me the most about the film was the lack of hope despite the film makers and writers efforts to try and show there just might be hope. This show of hope, this show of Precious getting out from underneath her mother’s tyrannical reign of terror, her trying to improve herself and her education is all dashed by the knowledge that she has HIV and that she is going to die and all those glimmers of sunshine were just a mirage. I know this is the way of life that sometimes no matter how hard we climb the walls just keep collapsing but in a film that is so dark, that is so disturbing it just another bitter pill to swallow and another pill that just makes me dislike the movie that much more.

Gabourey Sidibe does give a grand performance as the tortured and browbeaten Precious and and Mo'Nique also turns in a great performance as the mother putting her daughter through hell but performances and acting can not save a movie from itself. I know some might be up in arms that I am giving this film an Oscar nominated, critically acclaimed film a bad review but I did not like the movie in one iota. It was torturous to watch the film for me, to wallow in the ugliness of mankind, to wallow in the ugliness of society and to come out of the other side covered in grime and filth of everything that is wrong with the world. I cannot recommend this movie for anyone to see, no one should have to wallow in this disparity of humanity anymore than anyone should have to live it in real life.

Grade: D