Film review: Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire (15)

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AN average of 60 children are sexually abused in Britain every single day.

It’s a shocking statistic, even more so when you consider that so many more corruptions of childhood innocence go unreported, so many more voices go unheard.

Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire is a harrowing account of one of these voices — a 16-year-old girl living in Harlem — and the journey of self-discovery that leads her out of the darkness.

Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the 15 certificate: Lee Daniels’s film is punctuated by entirely necessary scenes of cruelty that almost compel us to turn away from the screen in horror and distress.

When writing the script, screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher was forced to make significant changes to the original book by New York-based poet and teacher Sapphire.

Hardcore scenes have been cut entirely, and peripheral characters fleshed out to provide flecks of humour and greater emotional support for the overweight heroine during her rites of passage.

Most noticeably, the writer allows the central character, Precious, to temporarily escape her predicament into colour-saturated fantasy sequences, where she imagines herself on a red carpet with Tom Cruise or wowing the guests at a fashion show.

The film begins with 16-year-old Claireece Jones (Sidibe), aka “Precious”, being summoned to the office of school headmistress Mrs Lichtenstein (Gordon), to answer worrying rumours that she is pregnant for a second time.

Threatened with expulsion, Precious agrees to attend an alternative schooling project called Each One Teach One instead, run by literacy teacher Ms Rain (Patton).

The inspirational and caring tutor encourages Precious to keep a journal and to believe in herself.

However, the pregnant teenager must contend with her monstrous mother, Mary (Mo’Nique), who would rather batter her daughter to a bloody pulp than ever let her leave.