'PRECIOUS' INVADES TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL
by Wilson Morales
September 14, 2009
With all the films debuting at the Toronto Film Festival, one is already getting tremendous buzz and plenty of Oscar talk.
The bleak, dark and inspirational film 'Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire' has folks talking.
Executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, who will support Lionsgate's distribution of the film through their respective motion picture companies, Harpo Films and 34th Street Films, were on hand to discuss the movie.
Most of the cast (Gabourey Sidibe, Paula Patton, Sherrie Shepherd, an unrecognizable Mariah Carey and Grace Hightower); along with director Lee Daniels; producer Lisa Cortes; Mary J. Blige, who penned a song for the film; and screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, headed overseas for the festival showing. Also attending was the book's author Sapphire.
Mo'Nique, who's generating Oscar talk for her role in the film, couldn't attend. She's currently shooting her new show, which will air on BET.
After its initial showing at the Sundance, the Lee Daniels-directed film has received nothing but praise.
Set in Harlem in 1987, the movie follows the story of Claireece "Precious" Jones (Sidibe), a 16-year-old African American girl born into a life no one would want. She's pregnant for the second time by her absent father. At home, she must wait on her mother (Mo'Nique), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write.
Precious may be down, but she is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakable sense that other possibilities exist for her. Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school. She doesn't know the meaning of "alternative," but her instincts tell her this is the chance she has been waiting for. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Patton), Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination.
'Precious' opens on Nov. 6.
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