Precious indeed

About ten months ago I saw a film at the Sundance Film Festival that was, to me, powerful and amazing. I blogged about it on Jan. 29 of this year and on Monday night I saw the film again. It has now been titled, "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Saphire".

The first time I saw it with 1,200 people quite enthused to see the winner of the Audience Award at Sundance. The film received tremendous applause and even tears and cheers and some of those involved in making it talked to the audience after the screening and were moved to tears by the response a film about a black girl in Harlem received from mostly rich, mostly white people in Park City.

Monday I saw it with my wife and two dozen people (at most) in Salt Lake City in its last week of release. By Thursday it will leave the only theater in Utah that is showing it and probably be gone forever. It might make a return when it gets an Oscar nomination for "Best Supporting Actress" (absolute shoe in) and perhaps for "Best Picture". But reportedly it hasn't done well locally and I wonder if more people saw it in one night in Park City than have seen it in its entire run in SLC.

Oddly, Utahns turn out for Sundance in great numbers but have given this Sundance film a pass in its regular run. According to BoxOfficeMojo.com it made $36 million and played in as many at 664 theaters, so those numbers are great. It turned a healthy profit.

This post isn't about the film's finances however but about the film's power.

It is terrible to watch because the protagonist, the titular Precious, has a horrible life. It deals with rape, incest, physical abuse, mental abuse and the difficulties that are living in the inner-city. It hurts to watch.

I know a lot of LDS people (Mormons) who will not view R-rated films. This film is definitely R-rated but it seems more wrong to me for my fellow man - including my fellow Mormons - not to see with powerful realism, the circumstances that some people live in. It seems wrong to remain blissfully ignorant of how hard life is for others.

This very day I received an e-mail telling the morality tale of the grasshopper and the ant and then bemoaning the fact that now the grasshopper is lazy and takes from the ant and those that work hard have every advantage taken away.

I challenge anybody who has that notion, to go see "Precious". One character in the film is exactly that grasshopper but others in the film grow up with disadvantages beyond any hope of control and with a ridiculously remote chance of overcoming obstacles. I know first hand, face-to-face, that this movie paints a realistic portrait not only of characters but of an overwhelmed support system.

I champion the cause of this film because as I said in January, it needs to be seen. It must be seen and not because it creates sentiment or sympathy but because it educates and informs. It pulls back the cover we, as a society, like to keep over our ugliest corners. The film will make viewers uncomfortable and it should. Nobody wants to go to the cinema and see this film because it is hard.


It is so much easier to go see "The Blind Side," and see the also-true story where one privileged family helps one big-hearted, unloved minority kid who "makes it". We all love to feel good and we love to feel good about "the haves" helping "the have nots". Good for Sandra Bullock and good for NFL players and good for feel-good stories. One cannot say enough good about the real people involved in that real story and I applaud the makers of that movie for telling an uplifting story. I am a big fan of all of those things but for the Precious Joneses of the world, there is no Sandra Bullock offering to adopt and nurture and help somebody who has it unimaginably hard.
"The Blind Side" has pulled in $130,309,730 and counting.

Precious Jones certainly fantasizes that there is somebody to save her but is told again and again by circumstances that there is not. Nobody helps her when she is being abused and raped in her own home and nobody is there to help her in math class where it is difficult to hear a word from the teacher when she genuinely wants to learn. If one watches the film carefully, there are a dozen characters in the film with really hard circumstances that we don't see with real depth while we experience everything through Precious' eyes. And there are heroes here too: nurses, teachers, social workers and those trying their hardest to make it day-to-day.

So Mormons and other sensitive souls will avoid the film because they think they are remaining more "pure" by not seeing the ugliness of the world. I think that is a great rule for life but an incorrect notion in this case. I think the film enlarges our love for our fellow-beings and increases our love for those who are different from us by circumstance and race and environment and education. I am convinced the greatest divide in society isn't by race but by financial standing and this is an unflinching look into the dank basement of society. I know it is real because I saw it myself. I knew a dozen Precious stories. It is easy to love the minority athlete who achieves excellence but it is difficult to love the obese 17-year-old girl who can barely read, was raised on welfare and who might triumph in her life by passing the GED.

I challenge readers to go to the cinema and be really uncomfortable for two hours and learn. You will hear vile language and see ugly souls and despicable actions and some of them will stick with you. They should, because those things are said and done to real people in real places and you can be sure they stick with them too. I challenge readers to ponder in this Christmas season who in society Christ would minister to and I challenge readers to watch "Precious" and not weep inside with love for those who suffer.