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Precious | 2009 | R | - 8.8.10

Tyler Perry's and Oprah Winfrey's movie adaptation of the novel "Push" by Sapphire, an emotional journey into the life of a young, illiterate, overweight and pregnant teenager (Gabourey Sidibe) who has endured a life of sexual abuse and incest. She enrolls in an alternative school that pushes her life into a new direction. Also with Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd and Lenny Kravtiz. Directed by Lee Daniels. [1:49]

SEX/NUDITY 8 - A teen girl flops onto a bed as her father begins to unzip his pants (we see a portion of his bare stomach, including his navel): he climbs on top of her (his bare upper chest is visible) and thrusts, raping her, while he moans and cries "Yes" and "Daddy loves you" and the teen stares at the ceiling -- a woman is visible in the background, watching. We see a flashback of a man's sweat-covered face, his body thrusting, and we hear panting (it is referring back to a previously seen incestuous rape scene between a teen girl and her father).
 A woman is seen lying in bed, a blanket is pulled up to her neck, moaning suggestively as slight movement is seen under the covers suggesting masturbation, and she shouts for a pregnant teen girl, saying, "Come take care of Mommy" (presumably trying to initiate incestuous rape with her daughter).
 A teen girl dances suggestively, and throws herself against the floor and pantomimes sexual thrusting. A woman wearing a form-fitting, sleeveless body suit dances suggestively in front of a television. A teen girl imagines that she is a wearing a body suit, covered by a silk drape, and dancing suggestively while an attractive young man watches; she blows kisses at him, he wraps his arms around her and kisses and licks her ear seductively (she wakes up to find a dog licking her ear).
 A woman wearing a nightgown kisses another woman. A teen girl watches two women kissing and identifies them as "straight up lesbians."
 A teen girl breastfeeds a newborn baby: she pushes down her hospital gown and her bare breast is seen, with the newborn latched on, obscuring the nipple. A woman wears a short nightgown, with no undergarments, and when she runs the outline of her breasts are visible. A teen girl makes exaggerated gestures (lifting up one of her legs and thrusting her hands away from her crotch) to show giving birth. A teen girl jokes with a young woman that a latex glove looks like a "giant condom" and playfully knocks it around with her hand.
 A woman shouts at another woman after being asked to "explain the abuse," and she is told that she needs to explain her role in the sexual and physical abuse of a teen girl by her father: the woman tells the story of how she had stood by while the girl's father had sexually abused her starting at the age of three, first while engaging in sexual intercourse with the woman while the girl was lying beside them, and the man touched her and continued to escalate into rape and molestation, until the teen girl had become pregnant twice by her father. During a very heated and violent tirade, a woman shouts at a her pregnant teen daughter and refers to the incestuous rape that had impregnated the girl, saying that just because a man had "given her more babies" did not mean that he loved her more than he loved her. A woman asks a teen girl if she is pregnant, she asks how "it" happened and the teen says, "I had sex"; the woman asks if there is "something" she wants to talk about. A group of teen girls discuss incest, after one of them details that she is going to attend counseling for victims of incest and rape. In a voiceover, we hear a teen girl state that she wishes she had a boyfriend. A woman yells over the phone at a man about the fact that he's having an affair. A pregnant teen girl tells a woman that she has been kicked out of school because she is pregnant. A pregnant teen girl tells a woman that her own father had "given her two babies," and she goes on to explain her living conditions, including a reference to vampires leaving out dirty tampons, and that she had given birth to her first child on the kitchen floor while her mother kicked her in the head. A woman asks a teen girl where her grandmother was while her father had been sexually abusing her. A woman talks about breastfeeding her boyfriend. A group of teen girls joke and make crude remarks with a teen girl after she attempts to come on to a man; they tease the man, making suggestive comments about intercourse. We hear a television show in the background saying, "legs up!" implying intercourse. A man looks a woman up and down as she dances close to another woman, and a teen girl steers the man toward another woman, who eagerly introduces herself. A teen girl says that childbirth hurts "bad." A teenage girl asks a pregnant young woman when she is "due" and she says that she does not know. A teen girl says that she believes an older man is sexually interested in her, and she is also interested in him. A woman tells a teen girl, "Your daddy is dead" and that the man had died of AIDS; the young woman asks the woman if she is HIV positive, and the woman makes a remark about never having engaged in anal intercourse, so she cannot have AIDS.
 A pregnant teen imagines that a photograph of an older man is saying that he loves her and he is going to leave his wife and be with the girl.
 A teen girl introduces herself using a male name and is dressed as a male (the gender of the girl is never confirmed and another teen girl makes a snide comment about the person not actually "being a man"); she also looks at another teen girl in a suggestive fashion and is seen in a photo with her arms around the shoulders of a teen girl, and her mouth formed in an air-kiss in her direction.

VIOLENCE/GORE 8 - A teen girl flops onto a bed as her father begins to unzip his pants (we see a portion of his bare stomach, including his navel): he climbs on top of her (his bare upper chest is visible) and thrusts, raping her, while he moans and cries "Yes" and "Daddy loves you" and the teen stares at the ceiling -- a woman is visible in the background, watching. We see a flashback of a man's sweat-covered face, his body thrusting, and we hear panting (it is referring back to a previously seen incestuous rape scene between a teen girl and her father).
 A woman shouts at her daughter, asking where she had been, to which she replies that she was at the hospital giving birth: she hands the baby to the woman, the woman throws the baby onto a chair, rushes at her daughter, screaming that she had ruined her life and "stolen her man," and the two women start fighting with shoving, punching and throwing objects; the daughter scoops up the infant, falls head over heels down six stairs, the mother (her face is bloodied) drops a television, which crashes and explodes and we see a small trickle of blood on the daughter's upper lip, coming from her nostril.
 After verbally berating her, a woman throws an object at a pregnant teen girl's head, the object hits her in the back of the head and she drops to the ground, unconscious; the woman pours a bowl of water on the girl to wake her up.
 A teenage boy shouts at a man after the man verbally reprimands him, the boy shouts profanities at the man but is cut off as a pregnant teen girl punches the boy on the side of the head and slams her body against him and a desk, shouting that he needs to leave the man alone.
 A woman swings a frying pan at the head of a pregnant teen girl, she ducks, the woman throws the pan to the floor and says she "should have had an abortion" when she was pregnant with her; the woman throws the frying pan at the girl and screams, "I'm going to kill you!" (we do not see the outcome of the fight).
 After a young woman makes a snide remark about a pregnant teen girl, the pregnant girl lunges at her, slapping her face and bashing the side of her head with her fists; a woman attempts to break up the fight while other young women look on and laugh.
 We see a young girl with a black eye and as a woman walks away from her she shouts that the girl needs to "shut up and sit still." A woman shouts at a young girl as she struggles against the woman's grasp. A pregnant teen girl screams as she goes into labor and is rushed on a gurney down a hallway; a man tells her that she needs to stop screaming, she looks at the man, and continues to scream. A teenage boy makes cat calls towards a pregnant teen girl, asking when he is going to "get with" her; she does not respond, he verbally berates her, and shoves her to the ground, knocking her out.
 A woman shouts at another woman after being asked to "explain the abuse," and she is told that she needs to explain her role in the sexual and physical abuse of a teen girl by her father: the woman tells the story of how she had stood by while the girl's father had sexually abused her starting at the age of three, first while engaging in sexual intercourse with the woman while the girl was lying beside them, and the man touched her and continued to escalate into rape and molestation, until the teen girl had become pregnant twice by her father. A woman angrily tells a pregnant teen girl to "sit down!" A woman angrily shouts at a pregnant teen girl and accuses her of lying. A teen girl jokes that she should have "kicked" another person. The screen is black as we hear a woman screaming profanities and berating a pregnant teen girl. A pregnant teen girl shouts into an intercom at a woman, saying that she does not want to see her. A teen girl says that her grandmother is "afraid" of her mother. A pregnant teen girl orders food, takes it without paying for it, and runs out of the restaurant as a woman angrily shouts behind her. A woman shouts at a pregnant teen girl, shouting that she must eat a plate of food even though she is not hungry. A pregnant teen girl tells a woman with dread, "My momma is gonna kill me." We see a subtitle on a television that reads, "I'll smack you." A teen girl says that she sometimes wishes that she were dead. A teen girl says, "...beat me, raped me, called me an animal, made me worthless, made me sick." A teen girl jokes that she is "looking up" in hopes of seeing a desk, couch, piano, television, or even her mother, barreling towards her, to crush her. A woman shouts that a pregnant teen girl would not know what to do if the woman would die. A woman asks a pregnant teen girl if she had ever hit anyone and the young woman responds, "My mother." A woman tells a teen girl, "Your daddy is dead" and that the man had died of AIDS; the young woman asks the woman if she is HIV positive, and the woman makes a remark about never having engaged in anal intercourse, so she cannot have AIDS. A teen girl announces that she is HIV positive, a group of young women ask if her child is HIV positive, she responds that he is not, but that she needs to stop breastfeeding immediately. A young woman asks another young woman why a baby is wearing a blood-covered blanket; the young woman says the blood is not the baby's, but his mother's. A teen girl weeps as she says that she is alone, that no one will want her, and that her father had said he would marry her, but she knows that is illegal. A woman says that a child with Down syndrome is "crazy like an animal." A pregnant young woman tells a woman that her child is called, "Moggie" because she is a "mongoloid." A young woman refers to herself as "ugly, black grease to be wiped away." A group of young women make snide comments, using letters of the alphabet that start anatomical or profane terms. We hear that a woman says that their apartment is "too little because she [a young woman] is so big." A young woman makes a racist gesture (she pulls on her eyes, elongating them to become almond shaped) while standing in front of an Asian statue. After a young woman teases another young woman about being sexually promiscuous, she retorts that the other young woman is an illegal immigrant.
 A pregnant teen girl sits down on a bench, she looks ill and rushes to a trashcan, where she throws up (we hear retching, splats and we see vomit). A young woman takes a piece of chewed up gum from her mouth and presses it against a statue in a museum.
 A woman storms up a flight of stairs, rushes into a bedroom, and rips pictures off the wall and pushes everything off the top of a dresser. A woman angrily slams down a phone onto the receiver. Two women approach a door with the glass broken, one of the women puts her hand through the broken glass and opens the door, saying that she is going to go call the police.

LANGUAGE 10 - About 50 F-words and its derivatives, 13 sexual references, 20 scatological terms, 17 anatomical terms, 37 mild obscenities, 2 derogatory/racist terms, 4 derogatory terms for homosexuals, 3 derogatory terms for mentally challenged (not including that a mentally retarded child is named "Moggie" after the term mongoloid), name-calling (big, crackheads, uppity, fat, dumb, stupid, nasty, whale, fat mess, idiot, greedy, monster), 7 religious profanities, 4 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A young woman says that the only people who ring her doorbell are "crackheads" who are "cracked out," a young woman tells a group of young women that she had been a drug addict and that her addiction had caused her to drop out of school, and a woman shouts at another woman, saying that there were never drugs present in the home she shared with a young woman. Two glasses of wine are shown sitting on a table in front of a woman and a young woman, two women drink wine in front of a young woman and infant, and a woman pours another woman more wine. A woman asks a young woman if she had bought the woman's cigarettes, a woman smokes cigarettes in many scenes, a young woman lights a cigarette and takes a deep drag, a woman struggles to light a cigarette and takes a deep drag, a woman clutches an empty cigarette pack, a group of three young men smoke cigarettes and discuss possible drug use, a man smokes a cigarette, a young woman attempts to light a cigarette and is interrupted, we see a pack of cigarettes on a desk in front of a young woman, a woman smokes a cigarette while holding a toddler, a young woman walks into a room holding a newborn baby while a woman smokes a cigarette, and a woman holds a newborn baby while smoking a cigarette.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Rape, incest, GED, Down syndrome, teenage pregnancy, molestation, theft, physical and mental abuse, drug addiction, the welfare system, therapy, forgiveness, homosexuality, racism, poverty, being overweight, alternative schools, self hatred, single motherhood, humiliation, deprivation.

MESSAGE - With love, it is possible to overcome even the greatest obstacles.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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