Harnessed to a cumbersome title due to a lunatic clause in the optioning agreement, Lee Daniels' Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire is one of this year's must-see films. Not necessarily because it’s one of the best, but because to not have an opinion on it would seem foolish. It boasts two juggernaut executive producers -- Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey -- and succeeds where so many American films have failed in capturing a horrific, specific corner of the African-American experience. It will win Oscars; how many, I do not know.

One of said Oscars may well go to Mo'Nique, the popular comedian and Phat Girlz alum who appeared in Daniels' reprehensible directorial debut Shadowboxer. Her performance as Mary, the monstrous mother of the titular illiterate teen, is terrifying, to be sure, but also surprisingly human. Mary's daughter, Clareece "Precious" Jones (talented newcomer Gabourey "Gabby" Sibide), is the film's focus. Just 16, Precious has recently been impregnated for the second time by her own father (she has already delivered one daughter with Down syndrome). In class, she fantasizes about marrying her handsome white teacher; in the mirror, she sees a white blonde. She leaves school following an awkward confrontation with her principal but is given hope from a class at the local learning annex. The Harlem teen finds a more suitable maternal figure in teacher Ms. Rain (a great Paula Patton), who is humorously revealed as a lesbian, and finds a support system in the other troubled girls in her class. Aided by a social worker (an unrecognizable and shockingly strong Mariah Carey), Precious begins a slow, rough detachment from her life with Mary.

Daniels carefully handles the cultural schisms that inflect Precious's fantasies; the long hard road women and African-Americans have traveled rings under every hesitant syllable Sibide utters. And when it comes time to unleash the very real horrors of Mary, the film gains an almost Shakespearean ferocity and ambition. Over and over again, Daniels approaches such extreme emotions with an almost supernatural confidence. Despair and jealousy, kindness and love are here portrayed as violent, unrestrained torrents with the strength to knock the wind straight out of you. Other filmmakers might have seen Geoffrey Fletcher's script for Precious and sought to grant respite from such unflinching terror and overwhelming compassion. But what would be the point of surviving a season in hell if you didn't have the burns to prove it?



Springer, we're comin' for ya.