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73
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65
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 23 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Geoffrey Fletcher
Directed by: Lee Daniels
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 6, 2009
Running Time: 109 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive language
Starring Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe, Paula Patton, Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd, and Lenny Kravitz
Set in Harlem in 1987, it is the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones, a sixteen-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother, a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write. Precious may sometimes be down, but she is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities exist for her. Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. Precious doesn’t know the meaning of “alternative,” but her instincts tell her this is the chance she has been waiting for. Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination. (Lionsgate)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
It's a potent and moving experience, because by the end you feel you've witnessed nothing less than the birth of a soul.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
This drama about an obese, illiterate black teen in Harlem practically guarantees some emotional uplift. But when it arrives, eventually, its authority is unimpeachable, so deeply has director Lee Daniels (Monster's Ball) immersed us in the depths of human ugliness.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli
A movie about an obese Harlem teenager who's raped by her father and abused by her mother. It's depressing, devastating, harrowing and repulsive. But there are lyric flights of hope interspersed among that raw naturalism, and that's what makes this movie amazing.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Qualifies as the most painful, poetic and improbably beautiful film of the year.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
This movie catalogs a wealth of human ugliness. It’s even been made to look ugly, presumably to underscore the horror movie that is Precious’s life.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Precious can’t be endorsed as entertainment: the circumstances and incidents and emotions in the film are far too dark and painful. But there is exhilaration in its daring, in its craft and in the powerhouse work of its principal actresses.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
Nimble and self-assured as Mr. Daniels’s direction may be, he could not make you believe in “Precious” unless you were able to believe in Precious herself. You will.
Read Full Review >NPR Bob Mondello
Its story ends up packing an emotional wallop as substantial as its title character.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey
Nothing quite prepares you for the rough-cut diamond that is Precious. A rare blend of pure entertainment and dark social commentary, this shockingly raw, surprisingly irreverent and absolutely unforgettable story.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
This is an exceptional film about nearly unendurable circumstances, endured. You will come out the other side of it a markedly enriched filmgoer.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Manages the task of being both heartbreaking and heart-warming.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Claireece "Precious" Jones, played by Gabourey Sidibe, 24, in an astounding debut that brims with grit and amazing grace.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
To its credit, this remarkable film does not contrive a happy ending. Under the circumstances, even a mildly hopeful one seems like a triumph of the highest order.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams
Although Precious is based on a novel, it's an act of truth-telling on behalf of a character in hellish enslavement.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
It melodramatizes everything and yet its overall effect is something more than melodrama.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The film's real strength is its cast, from an Oscar-bound Mo'Nique to a notably deglammed Mariah Carey.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Nick Antosca
Shot in the manner of a grueling horror picture, with jittery edits to half-remembered traumas and glistening close-ups on the faces of monsters.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge
As Precious, Sidibe is superb, allowing us to see the inner warmth and beauty of a young woman who, to her world's cruel eyes, might seem monstrous.
Read Full Review >Variety John Anderson
An urban nightmare with a surfeit of soul, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is like a diamond -- clear, bright, but oh so hard.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Not even Douglas Sirk or Lars von Trier would heap so much abuse on a heroine. And yet, on its own melodramatic, tear-jerking terms, Precious works.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Despite its melodramatic moments, remarkable performances drive home the film's inspiring message.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Precious is a bit like having a piano dropped on your head: messy but memorable.
Read Full Review >New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott
Precious is painful, it is harrowing, it is emotionally exhausting. It is also a singular film, one that is as difficult to compare to another as it is to forget.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
You go to a Daniels movie not to be entertained, but edified. While not everyone goes to the movies for self-improvement, you will leave this one having witnessed phenomenal acting.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
This bruising, harrowing movie would be impossible to sit through without at least a hint of light at the end of its astonishingly dark tunnel.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The performances are so plainspoken and direct that they manage to push the material beyond the confines of a mere social-problem tract -- as played by the cast, these characters aren't symbols of inner-city hardship, but people.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Scott Foundas
Yet even when the movie is at its most schizoid, Precious still packs a wallop.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
It is certainly the best button-pushing movie of the year.
Read Full Review >Time Out New York Keith Uhlich
Given the months-long hype, what’s most bewildering about Sundance sensation Precious is its overall shrug-worthiness.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
The elements of Precious are powerful and shocking, but the movie is programmed. It is its own study guide.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
What we have here is a fouled-up fairy tale of oppression and empowerment, and it’s hard not to be ensnared by its mixture of rank maleficence and easy reverie. The gap between being genuinely stirred and having your arm twisted, however, is narrower than we care to admit.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
In its eagerness to drag us through the lower depths of human experience, Precious leaves no space for the audience to breathe or to draw our own conclusions. For a film about empowerment and self-actualization, it wields an awfully large cudgel.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 23 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Sista K gave it a10:
Loved IT! Oscars for Mo'nique & Gabby!
Eric S. gave it a10:
I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. It's a life changer.
