YMMV / Precious

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• Adaptation Displacement: The novel is being repackaged as "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire" following the success of the movie. So the new official title is effectively "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire (formerly Push: a novel by Sapphire)" by Sapphire.
• Award Snub: Gabourey Sidibe definitely shouldn't have lost to Sandra Bullock, even if she didn't deserve to win.
• Complete Monster: Carl Kenwood Jones, unfaithful husband to Mary and father to the titular Claireece "Precious" Jones, uses the two to fulfill his lust for sex and money. Carl molested Precious—since she was as young as 3 years old—and continued to rape her well into adolescence; verbally and physically abused Mary in the rare moments she objected; and showed no care to the grandchildren he fathered with Precious either.
• Harsher in Hindsight: "Precious' son Abdul looks just like his daddy." In the sequel Precious succumbs to AIDS and Abdul is put into an Orphanage of Fear where he's abused and raped and eventually becomes a violent rapist.
• Love to Hate: Mary for managing to take the worst aspects of an abusive mother, play them to the extreme, and come across and a bone-chillingly realistic villain.
• Misaimed Fandom: Unfortunately, there are some viewers that actually believe that Mary wasn't abusive to Precious. Why? Because she provided food and shelter. What these people don't understand is that, even without the physical and verbal abuse, Precious was her mother's slave, that she used her and her grandchildren to get welfare benefits and that she even sexually abused her.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Mary practically lives on the other side of the line the way some people live on the other side of the train tracks. Dishonorable mentions include:
    • Standing in an open doorway to watch Carl raping Precious.
    • Attacking her with an iron skillet.
    • Throwing a television set down from the upper level of a stairwell to try and hit Precious over the head.
    • Asking to hold Abdul, then literally throwing him to the floor, followed by chucking a flower pot at the back of Precious' head, then after further physcial abuse, throws another item at the back of her head as she hightails it out of there with Abdul in tow.
    • The brutal emotional and physical abuse in the staircase scene.
  • Carl rapes his own daughter.
• Narm:
  • There are many Youtube comments of people who reportedly laughed at Precious when she was verbally abused by her mother. Some of this is because Mo'nique is so funny, and Word of God on the commentary says they were laughing as they were filming the worst of the abuse scenes.
  • Precious and Mary fighting is scored by, of all things, a gospel Christmas song, as well as the fact that there are several freeze frames accompanied by photographs of younger Precious and Mary. The latter pinpoints how happy they were before everything went to hell, which is too on-the-nose.
• Nightmare Fuel: The scene in which Precious is raped by her father. It's every bit as unsettling as you could possibly expect it to be.
• One-Scene Wonder: Carl Jones. He's only mentioned throughout the film by Precious, Mary and Precious' caseworker. And his only physical appearance on-screen is him raping his own daughter in a flashback.
• She Really Can Act:
  • Mo'Nique gives a stunning once in a lifetime performance as Mary. Deservedly, she won almost every conceivable film award for it.
  • Gabourey Sidibe was also amazing in the film, so much so that she actually had to remind people that she wasn’t her character. It's doubly impressive because playing Precious was her first time acting—she had never done so much as a stage role before auditioning for the part.
• Sequelitis: The sequel novel wasn't as well liked thanks to cranking the bleak and hopeless moments up to eleven.
• Squick: Carl raping his daughter Precious in a flashback.
• Tough Act to Follow: Gabourey Sidibe came out of the gate hot with her debut in Precious, netting herself an Oscar nomination and rave acclaim. She has never matched the success of the film since, mostly sticking to TV roles such as the American Horror Story franchise.
• 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. She's so desensitized and used to the living hell her life is that she doesn't feel anything about it. In the book it takes her a long time to realize that her father's having sex with her isn't just unpleasant or illegal. She finally writes, "I think I was rape."

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