"Precious" based on the book by Sapphire

The movie "Precious," based on the book by Sapphire, is filmed in bright primary colors offset by the warm browns of its characters' skin and the grays of Harlem streets and stairwells. Clarice "Precious" Jones has suffered unimaginable abuse from the mother and father who must have given her this ironic name, and the initial scenes invite us both into this abuse, and Clarice's fantasies of being a pop diva. The beautiful photography, acting and dialogue got me through the constant overwhelming "issue" piling that the plot wades through. With all the gory details available for perusal, it's easy to get side-tracked from the film's main theme, which, I think, is resilience. Clarice necessarily sleep walks through her life, but has one eye open long enough to capture a moment with a principal who sends her to an alternative school to meet Miss Blue Rain, some quirky classmates and a vegetarian male nurse who become her family.

Clarice's mother hangs on to her--probably for her state check--OR MAYBE because she has an inkling that Clarice has something "precious," an ability to connect with others, to give and receive love which is the core of real survival. Clarice's mother has pop diva dreams too, we learn, as she dances awkwardly in a multi-colored unitard in front of the TV and wonders who will love her when she isn't slinging pots at her daughter's head or frauding the state. Again, the complexity of this character almost gets submerged in the sheer volume of bad behavior written into the script--her repulsiveness sometimes diminishes the more subtle points--the jealousy and powerlessness she feels around her daughter. In another darker story, maybe mother and daughter would be the same before and after character? Luckily, we are off the hook for that tale--Precious, for all it's horror, wants us to feel a happy ending. Not because she is saved by social workers--portrayed as nice but mostly ineffectual, and annoyingly unwilling to answer questions about themselves. Mariah Carey--a real pop diva, in no make-up and a New York accent--portrays this convincingly,a refreshing reminder for me in my work as a therapist that there is no saving and curing, that therapists often have little to offer except a place to examine reality, and need to get over the bizzarre freudian training that still permeates the field and take opportunities to be "real" . Clarice steals her file away, instinctually knowing that it is her story, and that she has to own it to re-write it.

And finally, having worked many years with families across the continuum of poverty and abuse, I felt vaguely uncomfortable about the synchronization of the abusive family portrait with a black family portrait. I wanted audiences to recognize that families like Precious'--abusive, emotionally, spiritually, sexually and physically--come in all colors and classes. This story is how it looks on a poor black family in Harlem, but Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nussbaum were not far away uptown, and money covers a multitude of sins. So what is the takeaway--? I was recently comforted by a statement made by a war veteran and therapist who stated that studies show that man is not wired to kill. I'm holding on to that idea, and to the "precious" thread that connects one human being to another in a mutually supportive and loving way against terrible odds.