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Photo by Gail Harvey, no reproduction without permission
A Precious Sunday Afternoon On a quest to save my feet and my knee from my swan-song running shoes, I found myself in the Eaton Centre of a rainy Sunday afternoon. I always feel like an alien who fell to earth in that place. I’m not a person who thinks shopping is a hobby. In light of all that goes on in our world, random consumerism disgusts me. And even when I need something I have to be badgered into buying it, not because I’m cheap [I wish I were a little more thrifty] but because the act of trying on and choosing and acting as if I care at all upsets me. And food courts have to be the most depressing symbol of our culture I can think of. Situated nice and close to the escalator, we wonder why our citizens are fighting a losing battle with obesity and related illnesses…
I had plans to meet a friend for a screening of Precious, the Lee Daniels directed film based upon the novel Push by Sapphire. Shoes purchased, I waited with some trepidation in the lobby of another institution I rather loathe, the multi-theatre cinema. More escalators, another food court, crazy bad lighting and not a single proscenium arch…
It would be impossible to overstate how grateful I am to Sapphire, who knew this story needed to be told with her novel and to Lee Daniels for making this film. Quite honestly, it was one of the most powerful movie-going experiences of my life and I have seen rather a few movies. Any woman who gets through it without shedding a tear would have to be completely disconnected from herself and the women in her life. You will leave shell-shocked and weary but there is something in this film that is also about the life force. Although much of the truth of it is sickening, the courage shown in the face of pure human evil is immense and you cannot help but stumble from the theatre thinking about the strength people show when god gives them little reason to hope.
Mo’Nique’s performance has already won its most important prize: she gave it, and she was born to do so. Gabourey Sidibe [Precious] is absolutely a natural. Lee Daniels must have had to take a 7-week nap after filming this beautiful, agonizing movie. Mariah Carey just blows the lid off one of the most important scenes in the film—another person who is too often mocked and underestimated. I hope she and Cher find a great script and remind everyone that putting people in little identity boxes is always a bad idea.
The film ends with a dedication to all the Precious girls. There are far too many such girls in our world and yet, I hope somehow they find this movie and find the courage to cry out. It seems the dual betrayal of abusers and the women who stand by them will go on and on. That we rely on teachers to spot the secret anguish and justified rage in our children is a sad truth.
Precious is not a cozy two hours of self-deluding caramel corn. Go with a friend, and then walk in the rain after and pay homage to the Precious girls in your world who have survived, somehow.
Listening to: Mon Voisin, Ginette Reno
Reading: Bloomsbury Good Word Guide
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