Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Precious is a 2009 American drama film directed by Lee Daniels. Precious is an adaptation by Geoffrey S. Fletcher of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film stars Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, and Paula Patton. The film marked the acting debut of Sidibe.

At 2009 Sundance Film Festival, it won the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for best drama, as well as a Special Jury Prize for supporting actress Mo'Nique. After Precious' screening at Sundance in February 2009, Tyler Perry announced that he and Oprah Winfrey would be providing promotional assistance to the film, which was released through Lions Gate Entertainment. Precious won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Precious was also an official selection at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival (particularly the Un Certain Regard category).
Precious received six nominations, including Best Picture, for the 82nd Academy Awards. Supporting actress Mo'Nique and screenwriter Geoffrey S. Fletcher were selected as the winners in their respective categories.

In 1987, obese, illiterate, 16-year-old Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) lives in the ghetto of Harlem with her dysfunctional and abusive mother, Mary (Mo'Nique). She has been impregnated twice by her father, Carl, and suffers long term physical, sexual, and mental abuse from her unemployed mother. The family resides in a Section 8 tenement and subsists on welfare. Her first child, known only as "Lil Mongo", has Down syndrome and is being cared for by Precious' grandmother.

Following the discovery of Precious' second pregnancy, she is suspended from school. Her junior high school principal arranges to have her attend an alternative school, which she hopes can help Precious change her life's direction. Precious finds a way out of her traumatic daily existence through imagination and fantasy. While she is being raped by her father, she looks at the ceiling and imagines herself in a music video shoot in which she is the superstar and the focus of attention. While looking in photograph albums, she imagines the pictures talking to her. When she looks in the mirror, she sees a pretty, white, thin, blonde girl. In her mind, there is another world where she is loved and appreciated. Inspired by her new teacher, Blu Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins learning to read. Precious meets sporadically with a social worker named Miss Weiss (Mariah Carey), who learns about incest in the household when Precious unwittingly conveys it to her. Precious gives birth to her second child and names him Abdul. While at the hospital, she meets John McFadden (Lenny Kravitz), a nursing assistant who shows kindness to her. After Mary deliberately drops three-day-old Abdul and hits Precious, Precious fights back long enough to get her son and flees her home permanently. Shortly after leaving the house, Precious breaks into her school classroom to get out of the cold and is discovered the following morning by Miss Rain. The teacher finds assistance for Precious, who begins raising her son in a halfway house while she continues academically.

Precious recounts the details of the file to her fellow students and has a new lease on life. Her mother comes back into her life to inform Precious that her father has died of AIDS. Later, Precious learns that she is HIV positive, but Abdul is not. Feeling dejected, Precious meets Miss Weiss at her office and steals her case file. Mary and Precious see each other for the last time in Miss Weiss' office, where Weiss questions Mary about her abuse of Precious, and uncovers specific physical and sexual traumas Precious encountered, starting when she was three. The film ends with Precious still resolved to improve her life for herself and her children. She severs ties with her mother and plans to complete a General Educational Development test.

Precious received extremely positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 91% of 162 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.9 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 91%, based on a sample of 32 reviews.The site's general consensus is that "Precious  is a grim yet ultimately triumphant film about abuse and inner-city life, largely bolstered by exceptional performances from its cast." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 79 based on 35 reviews.