Hello! Last time I looked it was called acting.
It's what people who act in films do for a living.
They're called actors.
Gabourey Sidibe is an actor and when she played Precious she was acting. There is no requirement that an actor have personal experience of a character's lifestyle in order to play them.
Nobody asked Jeff Bridges how come he managed to be so good at portraying an alcoholic ex-country music star in "Crazy Heart" when he'd never been an alcoholic or a singing star.
Jeeeez!
Of course the unspoken subtext here is how could a totally inexperienced, grossly overweight, not conventionally attractive young woman deliver such a powerful performance in her debut movie, as if this kind of achievement is normally reserved for slim, attractive, lighter skinned actresses with several years worth of movie roles already under their belt?
Sidibe's performance is undeniably impressive and assured. The effectiveness of the story being told depends entirely on her ability to make us believe in Precious as a real, three dimensional person, and she more than meets the challenge.
What has, however, been overlooked in the rush to heap praise on her, is the fact that Precious is a character who reacts to events and people around more than she initiates actions. Other than a handful of fantasy sequences which allow Sidibe to intentionally overact, she's not required to express a wide range of emotions or make the kind of grand statements or gestures that might be a stretch for someone so inexperienced. We understand how Precious is feeling less from her facial expression (which rarely changes) and more from the information provided in her voice-over narration.
It's left to the more experienced Mo'Nique as Mary, Precious' sadistic monster of a mother, to act out the emotions of a woman pouring all her bitterness and anger into a relentless physical and emotional assault on her daughter. Mary is a truly terrifying character and the scenes of Precious' home life are genuinely disturbing, resembling nothing less than a real-life horror soap opera.
It's to the immense credit of producer-director Lee Daniels that he not only gets the most out of his cast but also keeps the story from tipping over into soap opera. While there is seemingly no end to the miseries piled onto Precious, the manipulation of our emotions is tempered by some creative camerawork, reminding us that PRECIOUS is something more than just another Film of the Week on the Hallmark Channel.
The film is powerful, bleak and hardhitting, but does it deserve all the Oscar attention? I got more out of PRECIOUS than I expected. I think the interpretation of the subject matter by Sidibe, Mo'Nique and director Daniels elevates the film to a status it might not otherwise have attained. In lesser hands this could easily have been overblown melodrama.
Mo'Nique's performance is absolutely Best Supporting Actress Oscar-worthy and, in a year when Sandra Bullock took home the Best Actress statuette, it's difficult to argue that Sidibe was any less deserving. I think the Academy also made the right decision in nominating but not awarding Daniels for best director and PRECIOUS for best film.
They're good but they're not the best of the best.
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