April 25, 2010

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2008)

Yet another masterpiece born out of Holywood's fascination with pain and suffering and fueled by its liberal guilt. Ofcourse, plotwise this is risible, having things like Mariah and random Lenny Kravit's in there is redoknulous, but honestly every movie that gets away with having the overweight black chick running away with a bukkit of chikkin is A-OK in my book. Props go to Mo'Nique for an amazing performance, although I can't tell how much of it was acting and how much was her riffing on racial stereotypes that Holywood is pushing. Still it took guts to go ahead with all those close-ups of her makeupless face and bad skin and all. This is a curious mix between something depressing à la Trier (Dogville, Manderlay), inspirational sap à la Dangerous Minds (I half-wished for Gangsta's Paradise to randomly start playing in the background) and Oprah. Overall I liked it, but maybe not for the right reasons, but oh well, I can't possibly hope to relate in the truly meaningful way that I'm sure the makers of this intended me to.