'Precious' Goes Where Other Films Fear to Tread

Picture this: A movie in which the main character is a black, 350-pound, 16-year-old girl, shown at one point walking the streets of Harlem, eating from a (stolen) bucket of fried chicken. Her mom? A lazy welfare cheat and tyrant who sits paralyzed in front of a television all day. And there's the largely absent father: He repeatedly rapes his daughter, impregnating her -- twice.

In 2009, somehow, "Precious" manages to use the language of stereotypes to speak to its audiences in an extraordinarily deep and fresh voice. Unlike many films about black and Latino disadvantaged kids, this one dwells on the home life that other movies just allude to on the way to making their inspirational points. "Precious" also includes an alternative school for troubled girls with, yes, sassy students and the stock devoted teacher. But it is the film's portrayal of the grim daily truths of Precious' family life that is unique in its horror. Even more unique, it occurred to me as I grimaced at the brutal cascade of details, is director Lee Daniels' willingness to go there.

"Precious" tells a story that a director might not have dared tackle just a few years ago for fear of a backlash. That's not to say that there won't be criticism of the negative images when the film, which is currently playing in just four cities, opens nationwide. But I can't help but feel that this is a different kind of movie in a different time. Unlike years past, there are enough positive media images of African-Americans these days -- there's even a black family in the White House, after all -- to make the negative ones more palatable, or at least understood as being at one end of a spectrum of family realities.

"As African-Americans, we are in an interesting place," Daniels told the New York Times Sunday magazine in a recent interview.