KATHMANDU: Based on the book Push by Sapphire, Precious is set in 1987 in inner city New York and it is grim grim grim as a Greek tragedy and is written for the purpose of ridding oneself of pity and fear. For me watching Precious with the brilliant Gabourey Sibide playing Clarisse Precious Jones oppressed by her mother Mary, raped by her father and made fun of for her obesity by her schoolmates with her fantasies of red carpets and dancing as her only relief, made me realise it couldn’t get any worse. But of course all over the world it is happening and is worse even as you read this.

Oprah Winfrey one of the two producers of Precious says, “I realised that, Jesus, I have seen that girl a million times. I see that girl every morning on the way to work, I see her standing on the corner, I see her waiting for the bus as I’m passing by in my limo, I see her coming out of the drugstore. And she’s been invisible to me. I’ve done exactly what the people in this film did to her. I’ve seen her and not seen her. And I thought, that will never happen to me again.”

Says Sam Graham, “Not every movie can survive the kind of hype — multiple awards at Sundance and other festivals, rapturous reviews, the promise of Oscars to come — that greeted the release of Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire, but this extraordinary piece of work is more than up to the task. What’s particularly notable about the film’s success and acclaim is that in the beginning, at least, it presents one of the grimmest scenarios imaginable. The scene is Harlem, New York, in 1987. Teenager Clarisse Precious Jones is dirt poor, morbidly obese, semiliterate, and pregnant for the second time — both courtesy of her own father (the first baby was born with Down syndrome). Her home life is several levels below Hell, as her bitter, vengeful welfare mother, Mary (Mo’Nique, in a role that has generated legitimate Oscar buzz), abuses her both physically and otherwise (telling Precious she should have aborted her is only the worst of a relentless flood of insults and vitriol). Yet somehow, the young woman still has hopes and dreams (depicted in a series of delightful fantasy sequences). She enrols in an alternative school, where a young teacher (Paula Patton) takes her under her wing and even into her home, and visits a social worker (an excellent Mariah Carey; fellow pop star Lenny Kravitz is also effective as a male nurse) who further helps bring Precious out of the darkness.”

Adds Roger Ebert. “Precious has shut down. She avoids looking at people, she hardly ever speaks and she’s nearly illiterate. Inside her lives a great hurt, and also her child, conceived in a rape. She is fat. Her clothes are too tight. School is an ordeal of mocking cruelty. Home is worse. Her mother, defeated by life, takes it out on her daughter. After Precious is raped by her father, her mother, is angry not at the man, but at the child for ‘stealing’ him.

There’s one element in the film that redeems this landscape of despair. That element is hope.”

The last word goes to Director African-American John Singleton who says, “We got a movie about a fat black girl financed, we got Oprah involved, and we won Sundance and Toronto.” Daniels says, “If I die tomorrow, I feel like there’s been an angel looking after this movie.”