Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)

As a 1987 Harlem teenager, Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is portrayed as and feels like a poor excuse for a human. Never mind the well known over-indulgent gen x-er teenagers you knew. Precious is an obese, illiterate, still in the 8th grade sixteen year old mother of a child with Down’s syndrome (affectionately called “Mongo”), living in a slum of an apartment in Harlem with a welfare mother and absentee incestuous father. At this point I imagine your attention is grabbed… no gripped. But hold on now, for the emotional ride of your movie watching life.

In between beatings from her mother, Precious mopes around the streets of Harlem eating fried chicken and getting kicked by neighborhood gang boys. You know Precious realizes how bad she has it when she tells her teacher Ms. Blu Rain (Paula Patton) “Sometimes I wish I was dead. But um lookin up, um lookin up for a piano to fall.” More evidence that she is aware of her current wretched situation in life is obvious as she fantasizes about a different life. Lee Daniels, the genius director of this film, has uncannily put the viewer in the roller coaster seat. You actually feel like you are seeing everything through Precious’ eyes. Like when Precious is fantasizing about walking the red carpet, performing on stage, or more profoundly looking in the mirror to see a thin, attractive, white woman. And then... her mother’s fist slams the side of her head.
When she discovers she is pregnant with her second child conceived with her father, Precious has the where with all to try and find a way out of the hell she is living in. She enters herself into an alternative school “Each One, Teach One” where she needs to get and 8.0 or better to obtain her GED. There she finds herself surrounded by the comfort of other teenage girls trying to overcome the challenges of inner city life. They celebrate the birth of her baby with her and create camaraderie around mutual challenges, even if it is to out-do each other.
Precious’s mother Mary (pun intended) is nothing of the sort. In this Oscar, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award winning role, Mo’nique has created a monster of a character as memorable and frightening as Hannibal Lecter. The dissonance created by this character presents the viewer with the ultimate challenge of feeling sympathy in a final scene where Mary tries to excuse her inexcusable behavior to Ms. Weiss (Mariah Carey) her social worker with the story of how she became the monster that she is. You see her boyfriend, the love of her life, and Precious’s father was having sex with his daughter, and she got violently (literally) jealous. The viewer is torn between a “boo, hoo, let’s call the waambulance” reaction, and a genuine empathy for this pathetic mother of a pathetic daughter and granddaughter.

I was disappointed to see the role of the nursing assistant who they call Nurse John (well played by Lenny Kravitz) portrayed. Once again the entertainment industry has taken a poetic license that borders on disrespectful to the profession. Not only is it inappropriate to call Nurse John a nurse when he isn’t one, but when Precious and her friends start verbalizing sexual fantasies about John and then he actually kisses Precious and shows up at a party in her honor, the portrayal starts to become frustratingly inaccurate. Maybe in Harlem that’s how health care professionals act, but I highly doubt it and take offense to the insinuation.

The goal of these reviews is to find the pertinence to the role of today’s nurse and highlight it in such a way that somehow enhances that role. Well if Precious had a nursing care plan, it would focus on Maslow’s safety and security and love and belonging and look something like this: Disturbed Body Image r/t morbid obesity; Risk-prone health behavior r/t the fact that she lives in bullet flying Harlem; Ineffective Coping m/b eating a bucket of fried chicken to curb her anxiety, Risk for Compromised Human Dignity r/t being used as a punching bag by her mother; Powerlessness and let’s not forget Hopelessness.

This movie, although excellent in every way, is hardly entertaining. It is a thought provoking, heart wrenching, and passion evoking, emotional tug-of-war-which makes it a genius of a movie. If you like the thrill and scare of rollercoasters, this is the “Cyclone” of movies.

Boston society of film Critics award for best ensemble cast and best supporting actress Mo’Nique. Golden Globe award for best supporting actress in a motion picture Mo’Nique.
Academy Award Winner for Best Actress Mo'Nique.

“Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire” is rated PG-13
Reviewer Rating: 4 out of 5 boxes of popcorn
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Written by: Sapphire (book), Geoffrey Fletcher (adapted screenplay)
Directed by: Lee Daniels
Available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and Digital Download.

MOVIE: Grey Gardens (2009)

Debutante life in the 1930’s wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for Edith Beale. All she ever wanted was to be a stage performer. Her Manhattan businessman husband Phelan Beale (Ken Howard) has had enough of her weekend party antics at their family retreat in the Hamptons and finally leaves her, sending their two boys to boarding school and dragging their youngest daughter back to the big apple to find a sensible husband and career. Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Jessica Lange) spends the rest of her days in her beloved East Hampton home, Grey Gardens, reminiscing (but rarely complaining) about the former perfectly grandiose life that the viewer is never sure she had. Based on the true story of Edith Beale and her daughter of the same name (Drew Barrymore) with re-enacted excerpts from the 1975 documentary of the same title, young Edith, better known as “Little Edie” and infamously known as the cousin of Jacquelyn Kennedy Onassis, is soon after her arrival pulled out of Manhattan (where she aspires to become a not-so sensible singer and dancer but ends up in the bed of a married man), and is sent back to Grey Gardens with her lonely, needy mother.

The mother and daughter live for the next 25 years in relative seclusion, with no vocation and therefore no income, spending out their trust funds feeding dozens of cats and sustaining on vanilla ice cream while Grey Gardens falls down around them and becomes infested with rodents. The fact that Bouvier family members are living in squalor makes national headlines forcing the attention of niece and cousin Jacquelyn (excellently portrayed by Jeanne Tripplehorn) who shares the news that “Ari and I will help you”.

To call this story a “riches to rags” one sounds not only like too much of a cliché, it doesn’t do justice to the magnificence of the characters perfectly depicted by the award winning performers or the allure of attempting to answer the “what is happening to these people” question that looms over the film. From the opening scenes showing the glamour of Little Edie’s Manhattan “coming out” party and the summer move into their well-staffed beach front Hamptons retreat to living in the squalor that precedes the neighbors’ complaints to the Suffolk County Board of Health, this film tickles the nerve, funny bone, senses, and any other body part needing stimulation.

“Grey Gardens” is one of those stories that is intriguing enough in its own right, but from the perspective of a provider that has always been curious about how individuals “end up that way” when presented with the challenges and situations in life that the Beale’s are eventually faced with, it is nothing less than mesmerizing. So the question, “how does one become a crazy cat lady” is put forth, but never completely answered. Was big Edith always crazy? Did the rejection of her husband or the stage trigger something unseen in this film? Was Little Edie psychologically abused leading to her overwhelming co-dependence? This movie equally evokes feelings of disgust (passing off cat food as pâté to the former First Lady) combined with intense compassion for a possibly mentally ill mother and a co-dependent daughter who gets dragged along, and down, for the ride. The most extravagant question is what would medical or psychological intervention have actually done for the Beale women? Edith proclaims perfect happiness with her situation, and Little Edie professes that she is simply doing what any loyal daughter in her situation would do. There was once a homeless person brought into a community hospital emergency room, overly intoxicated and soaked in urine with a bankbook in his pocket showing a $15,000 balance. Like that situation, the questions and (lack of) answers aside, “Grey Gardens’ provokes the viewer to look at their own assumptions and prejudices about socioeconomic class, the stigma of mental illness and how exactly should we confront the eccentricities of “the crazy cat lady”?

“Grey Gardens” rated TV-PG
Reviewer Rating (on a 1-5 scale): 4 delicious boxes of popcorn
HBO Films
Written By: Michael Sucsy and Patricia Rozema
Directed By: Michael Sucsy
Nominated for 17 Primetime Emmy Awards and Winner of Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Best Lead Actress, Miniseries or Movie-Jessica Lange; and Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie-Ken Howard.
Available on DVD

MOVIE: American Violet (2009)

Dee Roberts (Nicole Beharie) is a 24-year-old African American mother of four children under the age of eight, living the low income apartment complex Arlington Springs in Melody, Texas. Despite her apparent lot in life, she is portrayed as a church going, hard working diner waitress, who has made her mistakes but is still a good mother, person and citizen. But then that doesn’t make for a Hollywood movie...so the rest of the story.

Arlington Springs has been besieged by drug raids from the county police. The raid scene on screen looks like one staged for Tony Montana, complete with helicopter, and S.W.A.T. team with Kevlar vests; hardly worthy of a small town Texas housing project. These people must have done something pretty heinous! Dee Roberts is lucky enough not to be home during the raid, but the police find her waiting tables and drag her out in handcuffs in front of all her loyal customers (she must have done something REALLY bad!). During the booking process she is under the assumption she is arrested for hundreds of dollars in unpaid parking tickets. When she is shockingly charged with distributing narcotics in a school zone, she vehemently conveys her innocence. Unfortunately, her court appointed lawyer is in cahoots with the corrupt district attorney, Calvin Beckett (Michael O’Keefe) who is pressing charges. Her lawyer tries to persuade her to take a plea bargain and walk out of the filthy county jail and back home to her children that very day, OR rot in prison for the next four months awaiting trial since posting her $50, 000 bail bond is not an option. Dee is clever enough to realize that being a convicted felon means she would no longer be an upstanding citizen and waits it out in jail. Dee’s mother, Alma Roberts (Alfre Woodward) smothered with caring for her grandchildren during the ordeal encourages her seemingly innocent daughter to take the plea bargain. In the meantime, Alma has their congregation members sign a petition speaking to Dee’s positive character and the judge agrees to let her out on a reduced bail. Things are looking up! However, all the release means to Dee is that she unjustly spent 21 days in the abhorrent county jail while the abusive father of her children and his child molesting girlfriend tried to assume custody of her kids. Dee is out for vindication when along comes clever Yankee and ACLU lawyer, David Cohen (Tim Blake Nelson) and white Texas local attorney Sam Conroy (Will Patton), who attempt to persuade her in a direction that, for obvious reasons, never entered her mind: suing the D.A. for racial profiling.

Like many American stories, and while preserving some mystery of the storyline, as Dee’s Pastor Reverend Sanders (Charles S. Dutton) said, this story is about a woman who “struggled, suffered, and prevailed”. The plot has a bit of an “Erin Brokovichish” feel to it, watching Dee put herself on the line for the future greater good, but the dramatic scenes are extremely gripping and the acting is well above average. Beharie is convincing in her first starring role and the supporting cast no doubt made her job even easier.

“American Violet’, is based on the true 2000 story of Regina Kelly. The backdrop shows snapshots of the historic Bush vs. Gore election coverage and subsequent Supreme Court ruling. It magnifies (just as those events had) the implications and ramifications of the power of the American justice system. It forces the viewer to consider fundamental questions about the law, prejudices, family values, and the subjective definition of survival. When Alma is encouraging her innocent daughter to take the plea bargain and plead guilty as a drug dealer, it offers a perspective on the helplessness and desperation of her socioeconomic and ethnic population. Your heart wrenches for the children, who are obviously well cared for, but one can’t help wonder what their future holds. Will the perseverance of their feisty mother be enough? The oppression evident in “American Violet” has the onlooker gasping for air. The shortness of breath eventually subsides, but not without the care of family, friends, community and strangers willing to trust.

“American Violet” is rated PG-13
Reviewer Rating: 3 ½ boxes of popcorn
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Written by: Bill Hanley
Directed by: Tim Disney (Yes, as in Walt who was his great uncle)
Winner of the 2009 New Hampshire Film Festival for “Best Feature”
Available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and Digital Download.