These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
Audience Alienating Premise: Sometimes criticized for being too depressing, graphic, and hard to read. The sequel seems to be even more depressing.
Award Snub: Gabourey Sidibe definitely shouldn't have lost to Sandra Bullock, even if she didn't deserve to win.
Complaining about Shows You Don't Watch: People criticized the movie for trying to glamorize black poverty. Even though every second of the film was dedicated to showing how Precious' upbringing in this ungodly nightmare of a ghetto has all but completely ruined her life, leaving her a 16 year old illiterate, obese, HIV stricken, mother of two, that is still in the seventh grade.
Complete Monster: Audiences/readers debate the extent to which Mary is one of these.
Precious' father, on the other hand, pretty clearly is one.
Tear Jerker - Pretty much everything Precious goes through can pull on the heartstrings. However, there are 2 main tearjerkers: Precious finally having a breakdown after learning she is HIV positive, and the confrontation with her mother at the end, where it is revealed what happened to Precious when she was younger.
Wangst: Largely averted. Though she has very good reason to angst, Precious is usually fairly calm about her circumstances, only breaking down once during the movie.
The Woobie: Precious, obviously. Poor, poor, poor, Precious.
The film of Push called Precious has examples of:
"Funny Aneurysm" Moment: After hurling the television set at Precious and her son, Mary grumps back into the apartment, doesn't even bother to clean herself up, flops into her chair, picks up the remote and...
" Precious' son Abdul looks just like his daddy" In the sequel Precious succumbs to AIDS and Abdul is put into an Orphanageof Fear where he's abused and raped and eventually becomes a violent rapist.
A telekinetic "Mover" holds at bay a squad of at least thirty or forty men armed with assault rifles, and kills them all without breaking a sweat.
Another telekinetic gun battle, where nobody actually physically touches the guns.
Crowning Moment of Funny - Near the end, Nick injects himself with a syringe that everyone believes has the super serum and fakes his death. After Cassie finds him, he asks what was actually in the syringe. It was soy sauce. Everyone was chasing a syringe of soy sauce, except for Cassie, who promptly pulls it from a nearby garbage bin.
Injecting soy sauce directly into one's bloodstream can't be good for one's health...
Let's also not overlook when Cassie, a 13-year-old girl, attempts to improve her psychic visions by getting hammered on cheap whiskey.
Cassie (slurred): I am powering my use!
"I don't want to get shot because I screwed some imaginary sister you never had." "...I don't have a sister??"
Gorn - Nick spends half of his screen time on his back writhing in pain.
Narm - The Bleeders just plain looked silly when they screamed, except the one at the end, who was much more powerful than his two sons who had just been killed.
Relationship Writing Fumble - If the reviews and fan reactions are anything to go by, whatever relationship thirteen year old Cassie and twenty three year old Nick were supposed to have wasn't what the audience saw.
The marble scene in the beginning is taken almost directly from a part in Ted Dekker's book Blink, a book where the main character can see potential futures. When he's about to be arrested, he rolls a rubber ball down the hall, timing it so that it will bounce off the right walls, causing a distraction so he and his Love Interest can get away. Could have been a Shout Out though.
Its far closer in plot to Scanners and Firestarter.
