Philadelphia Film Festival 2009

A kind of Up the Down Staircase for the Age of Obama, no film electrified Sundance the way Philly producer-director Lee Daniel’s Precious did. And then did it again in Cannes. And Toronto. And New York! At Sundance, Precious won three key awards—the grand jury prize in the dramatic competition, the audience award and a special acting prize for Mo’Nique. In Toronto, it grabbed the audience award.

Daniels (Shadowboxer, The Woodsman, Monster’s Ball) returns home to close the fest with an exclamation point of a story that never gives up on its characters. Played unforgettably by Gabby Sidibe, Precious is a 300 pound, illiterate black girl lumbering through the mean streets of 1987 Harlem, fending off rape, battling her mother who’s emotionally and sexually combative, and outlasting a matrix of beleaguered teachers and bureaucrats. Based on the 1996 novel by Sapphire, a New York City writer and special-ed teacher, Precious is no dumpster-to-champion story but one that brilliantly captures the flicker of life in a girl all but declared DOA. Sidibe’s Precious lumbers through a constantly insulting world, shrugging it all off, allowing just enough life to seep through the slits of her eyes to signal her will to fight for herself. As Precious’ mother, Mo'Nique doesn’t’ just chew scenery—though when the time comes she wolfs it down—but carries the strength of the book forward in getting to the psychology of women in rubble. In Daniels sure hands, Mariah Carey also finds her strength as an actress, playing it close to home as a savvy New York social worker.

This is art as inspiration and as a warning to anyone with a shred of power over young lives to listen for the heartbeat in kids dismissed as hopeless. Bring a hanky. –Harlan Jacobson

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Please note that Six Passes cannot be used to redeem tickets to Precious or the Closing Night Party