Precious

The most unique thing about Precious is its heroine.  Sixteen year old Claireece Precious Jones (played by glowing newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) is stuck in middle school and pregnant with her second child.  Her home life is excruciating – her mother violently abusive, and her absent father responsible for her two children.  Precious survives by disappearing into her vivid imagination, where she is famous – a movie star, a singer, a dancer – wearing glamorous clothes and walking red carpets on the arms of besotted young men.  But her internal dialogue isn’t all fantasy: pondering the reality of her grim life, she bluntly calls her father a rapist, and acknowledges the emptiness of her mother’s days, which are mostly spent eating, watching television, collecting welfare checks.  Somehow, in spite of these disastrous role models, Precious finds the determination to hold out a little flame of hope: “Every day I tell myself, something’s gonna happen.  I’m gonna break through, or someone’s gonna break through to me.  Someday.”

This isn’t The Blind Side – there are no rich white people to come to the rescue, and Precious doesn’t have special talents to market – but the very reality of this film is what makes it moving.  The people who ultimately step in to help Precious are just regular folks doing their jobs: a school principal (Nealla Gordon), a teacher (Paula Patton), a nurse (Lenny Kravitz), a welfare worker (Mariah Carey).  

Shot with nearly painful reality by director Lee Daniels - it’s as if there is a camera perched on Precious’ shoulder.  I almost ducked when her mother pitched a frying pan her way.  And when her teacher, Ms. Rain, takes her home one night, we are intimately aware of Precious’ amazed response to the modest but charming home, and the comfortable but spirited conversation between Ms. Rain and her partner. “These people talk like TV shows I don’t watch,” she observes.   The film moves in small steps, taking us bit by bit through Precious’ evolution, not with giant dramatic moments but small significant ones.  As difficult as it is, sometimes, to watch, the film is always believable.

With a ferocious performance by Monique as Mary, Precious’ mother; she is a monster, but Monique makes her a multifaceted one.  Paula Patton plays Ms. Rain with dignity and compassion, and just enough vulnerability.  But the film belongs to Gabourey Sidibe, a complete newcomer to movies who captures Precious’ grim outward resignation without letting go of the character’s inward hope and determination.  Don’t stay away from Precious because of its harsh moments; this film is well worth seeing.  Playing in some 600 scattered locations around the country.

New Moon

Bella Swan (Kristin Stewart) is torn between two lovers, and either one could cause her serious bodily harm. Talk about feelin’ like a fool.  In the latest installment of the Twilight franchise, vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) has decided that love-of-his-life Bella isn’t safe around his kind, being human and all, so he and the rest of the Cullens decamp from Forks and vanish.  This bums Bella out, so she sits in her room for several screen minutes, looking out the window while time passes by in the form of scrolling screen captions: October, November, December.   

But even Twilight’s got to find a plotline, so into the breach comes Jacob, Bella’s childhood pal from the local Indian tribe; he’s grown up, buffed out, and he thinks Bella’s real cute.  He’s also a werewolf, and in the Twilight universe werewolves are sworn to protect humans from vampires.  This could make things interesting, in a Sabrina kind of way: will Bella stick with the handsome, elegant, dead vampire, or move over to the warmhearted, good looking, very alive werewolf?

Well, lesson not learned.  Bella is stuck on Edward, but it’s not all bad, because she ends up jetting off to Italy to save him from the only actually dangerous vamps in the Twilight saga, and that gives us about five minutes of Dakota Fanning playing a dark hearted vampire enforcer, which is pretty much the most interesting thing in the movie.  Have you seen the odd film critic refer to New Moon as a Dakota Fanning vehicle? It’s a testament to Fanning’s restrained, but malevolent performance, and to the fact that not much happens in this movie.

Speaking of acting, the much maligned Taylor Lautner, who was nearly dropped from the franchise after the first film, shows his acting chops here, playing the teenage werewolf with just the right balance of fear and confusion on the one side, and delight in his newfound power on the other.  The warmhearted, often humorous interactions between the wolf pack boys and between Bella and Jacob are the best part of the film.  New Moon smashed box office records in its opening weekend and quickly declined, which is normal for this kind of picture – the biggest fans turn out early, and then ticket sales calm down.  Still playing in thousands of theaters around the country.