Oprah's child steps into the limelight!

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In May of this year, Oprah could not stop talking about her “child,” adopted earlier this year. No she is not from the South African girls' school. She is from right here from the United States. She is extremely dark-skinned and at 16 weighs a health-challenging 300 pounds. She is the kind of girl that every doesn’t-know-any-better kid and her or his followers torment, and in this case even those who brought her into this world treat her like a servant and a sexual convenience. Oprah's "child" is a film she came on board with as a promoter entitled “Precious.” In fact everyone who was anyone in the film world was talking about it. “Precious,” originally known as "Push" is based on the novel of the same name by Sapphire. Very simply put it is the tragic story of an underprivileged African American teenager living in Harlem. Simple is not enough.

This story must suffer the weight of English’s more severe adjectives and nouns to bear out an accurate description. “Precious” is a story about the mercilessly abusive, grossly incestuous, abhorrent degradation of a young girl at the hands of her own family in her own painfully impoverished home. It is a world of festering cruelty and rejection from which she can not physically escape; her only way out, as far as her inexperienced mind knows, is through fantasy. “Precious” is a profile of a brutally tortured innocent soul; the story is surprisingly about balance in the universe because others enter her life and give her hope and help her find real doors to escape.

Powerful performances are delivered, in particular by the star, Gabourey Sidibes as Precious who was a college student who auditioned on a whim; she hadn’t even planned on being an actress. Mo'Nique as her mother and Mariah Cary as the social worker both act with such frightening convincing that the viewer might sadly conclude these women are imitating people they had seen or know first hand rather than acting. Their clothing is far from “Glitter” and glamorous; neither wears a drop of make-up. The same is true of the sets, the prison-like apartment and the bleak grey city streets that make up the stages of Precious’ life.

Lee Daniel directs “Precious” much in the same way that he did his directorial debut “Shadowboxer” with Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. It too has the borderline preposterous qualities of dysfunction that seem to attract Daniel to a script and demand that the audience suspend disbelief. In “Precious” he handles the film’s raw, jaw-dropping moments with what is becoming his signature look of lush color and quasi-lit scenes. Segues between reality and fantasy are brilliantly executed with the gentle-voice over narration of “Precious.” Nevertheless, due to the graphic depiction of abuse which causes it to run closer to the border of a horror film than a harrowing drama, it is difficult to watch. There just isn’t enough magic lighting on the planet to make it psychologically palatable, but it is artistically genius.

At the Sundance Film Festival, the jury and the film-aficionado audience were duly impressed: “Precious” received three top honors at the Festival’s closing awards ceremony: The Grand Jury Prize for best drama; The U.S. Dramatic Audience Award presented by Honda and The Special Jury Prize for supporting actress Mo'Nique.

And overseas in France, the jury and the critics were amazed. ”Precious” won a standing ovation for its director Lee Daniel at the Cannes festival.

Though the film hit all the festivals in January, Oprah had comedienne Mo’nique who plays the mother, on her show five months later in May 13th. They spoke at length and showed a clip. Oprah was visibly touched by the film's story and deeply moved by the performances, almost brought to tears. This is not unusual for the queen of sensitivity, but she has spoken out publicly about abuse against women from the time she did "The Color Purple" in 1985 until a few days ago when she told Chris Brown, who battered girlfriend Rihanna, she takes "domestic abuse very seriously." "Precious" hit very close to home. Oprah has disclosed at different times in different venues that she was raped three times before the age of 13, by a cousin at age 9, then a friend of her mother's and an uncle. Furthermore, she shared that as a result of her promiscuous behavior she had become pregnant and delivered a stillborn child at the age of only 14 ,some 41 years ago. Ms Winfrey decided to guarantee "Precious" would live and to promote the film whose trailer remains on her webpage.

It seems that in a life imitating art event, Oprah’s efforts to advance her “child” have paid off. There is already Oscar buzz "Precious," specifically Best Actress Oscar for Mo'nique who truly brings it. And so it is the depressing, sad flick about a black girl no one wanted may find a way to one of the limelight with a little help from those who loved her at Sundance and Cannes and a special woman named Oprah.

Note: The previous title of this film was "Push;” however, there is also a sci-fi film with that name, so it was changed to “Precious.”

Lee Daniel Entertainment and Smokehouse Entertainment

Executive Producers: Lisa Cortes, Tom Heller
Producers: Lee Daniel, Sarah Siegel-Magness, Gary Magness
Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Paula Patton, Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd, Lenny Kravitz
Director: Lee Daniel
Screenwriter: Damien Paul based on a novel by Sapphire
Producers: Lee Daniel, Sarah Siegel-Magness, Gary Magness
Executive producers: Lisa Cortes, Tom Heller
Director of photography: Andrew Dunn
Music: Mario Grigorov
Costume designer: Marina Draghici
Editor: Joe Klotz
No Rating, 109 minutes

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