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Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) takes abuse from Mom (Mo’Nique) in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” |
It only takes a few scenes into the bleak, but hope-filled drama “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” to realize you’re in the presence of two commanding actresses whose courageous, uncompromising, full-bore performances rank among the decade’s very best film achievements.
Brooklyn-born Gabourey Sidibe plays Precious, an obese and illiterate 16-year-old Harlem teen who, as we learn, has been repeatedly raped by her mother’s boyfriend and already given birth to one baby. As the story begins, she discovers that she’s pregnant with a second.
Sidibe gives herself completely over to the character, under Lee Daniels’ sensitive direction, and creates a complex, compassionate portrait of such strength and vulnerability that we accept her wounds and pain as our own. (Read more…) Rated: R (language and sexual assault). 109 minutes.
Opens Friday, November 6 at the River East 21, Chatham and City North in Chicago, the Century 12 in Evanston and the Country Club Hills 16 in Country Club Hills.