Another Movie Guide

Precious – Should You Read the Book Or Watch the Movie?

I recently read the book “Push” by Sapphire which was recently turned into the movie Precious, starring Gabourey Sidibe, a newcomer to Hollywood. This was her first major acting role. The film also starred Mo’Nique as her abusive mother and featured the talents of Mariah Carey and Lenny Cravitz in supporting roles.

I like to sometimes watch the film versions of books that I have enjoyed so I thought that I would see this movie to find out if the narrative of the story could translate to film and whether the characters were portrayed as I had imagined them in my head. Let me start off by saying that I thought the book was incredible. It was very well written, in a complex but realistic dialect, with well-rounded characters. The author does not shy away from discussing very uncomfortable and controversial topics, which I found refreshing. It is not often that I read a book that contains such honesty.

The film did a good job of portraying the character of Precious Jones, an overweight, illiterate girl with big dreams but not a lot of open doors. The film version of her mother was slightly different than in the book. In the book, she was much more overweight, and also molested her daughter sexually, which the film didn’t touch on. The book often mentioned how terrible Precious thought her mother smelled, which helped to fully get the reader to realize how little Precious thought of her mother, but in the film, this wasn’t mentioned.

The most disturbing aspects of the story were the parts where Precious is recounting the sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of her father. In the movie, there was only one flashback sequence, and it was very heavily toned down. I suppose this had to be done in order for the film to appeal to a larger audience, but I appreciated the graphic nature of the novel because it made Precious a more three-dimensional character. You understood where this woman was coming from better when you were made to feel a little bit of the disgust she felt towards her parents.

All in all, I felt that the movie was good and well worth my time to watch. However, I was glad that I had taken the time to read “Push” before I saw the movie because I definitely feel I would have missed something if I had only seen the movie. “Push” is a very quick read, so if you have a few hours to spare, I recommend reading the book, and I also recommend the movie for its wonderful acting and captivating drama.

Kari enjoys movies, but enjoys reading even more! Follow her on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/djkieri