By Montreal Spencer/south news editor

The movie Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire, is ironically titled because nothing was precious about the way the title character is treated or the tribulations she faces.

The movie takes place in Harlem in 1987. Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe stars as Claireece Precious Jones, a 16-year-old overweight, poor African-American, and Sidibe plays the role to perfection. She’s secretly pregnant for the second time by her worthless father, who isn’t seen in the movie except for some disturbing rape scenes.

Her mother Mary, played by Mo’Nique, abuses her verbally, emotionally and physically throughout the movie. Mo’Nique gives a convincing Oscar-worthy performance that would make the audience believe she really hates her only child.

Mary treats Precious as though she is Cinderella, and she acts worse than the evil step-sisters and step-mother combined. She makes Precious cook all the meals and forces her to eat when she doesn’t want to while telling her she’s fat and ugly.

“I’ll be all right cause I’m looking up,” Precious says, “looking up for a piano to fall.”

Their family life consists only of eating and watching television. Her mother tells her school is stupid and that she needs to take her butt to the welfare office.

Mariah Carey convincingly plays the social worker, Ms. Weiss, who Precious talks to about getting on welfare. She seems to be one of the only people who genuinely cares about Precious. 

Her school life is not much better than her undesirable home life. She’s illiterate, constantly teased by peers and ultimately sent to an alternative school because of her pregnancy.

She works on her reading skills while in alternative school and becomes fond of her teacher, played by Paula Patton. Precious wonders how people she barely knows can treat her better than her parents do.

The drama-filled movie does have several laugh-out-loud moments. Queen of comedy Mo’Nique will make the audience want to laugh at the most inappropriate moments with her dirty dialogue. Precious has daydream sequences that can sometimes be distracting but also serve as a comic relief.

No spoiler alerts here. This movie is filled with sad, shocking and funny moments. Precious is worthy of several watches and will probably make half the audience cry the first couple of times they see it.

Lenny Kravitz and Sherri Shepherd also star in the movie, directed by Lee Daniels. Oprah was smart to co-sign because this is a great movie.