Critical response John Anderson of
Variety said "to simply call it harrowing or unsparing doesn't quite cut it," having felt that the film is "courageous and uncompromising, a shaken cocktail of debasement and elation, despair and hope." Anderson cited Carey's performance as "pitch perfect" and Patton's role as Ms. Blu Rain as "disarming." He identified how Daniels uses one of the rich scenes created by Fletcher to position Mo'Nique in a painful confrontation with Sidibe that results in a masterful and thought-provoking performance that delivers the final "push" needed by Sidibe: "The more Precious tries to get away from her mother, the more she's pulled back". Betsy Sharkey, of the
Los Angeles Times described the film as being a "rough-cut diamond... [A] rare blend of pure entertainment and dark social commentary, it is a shockingly raw, surprisingly irreverent and absolutely unforgettable story."
Claudia Puig of
USA Today said that while there are "melodramatic moments" in the film, the cast gives "remarkable performances" to show audiences the film's "inspiring message."
Peter Travers, of
Rolling Stone called Mo'Nique "dynamite," a performance that "tears at your heart." Mary Pols of
Time praised the film's fantasy sequences for being able to show the audience a "joyous Wizard of Oz energy" that is able to "open the door into Precious's mind in a way even [the author] Sapphire couldn't." Marshall Fine of
The Huffington Post praised the film as being "a film that doesn't shy away from the depths to which human beings can sink, but it also shows the strength and resilience of which we are capable, even at our lowest moments." Scott Mendelson, also of
The Huffington Post, felt that when you put the "glaring issues aside," the film "still works as a potent character study and a glimpse inside a world we'd rather pretend does not exist in America." But while the film "succeeds as a powerful acting treat and a potent character study, there are some major narrative issues that prevent the film from being an accidental masterpiece." Mendelson described the film as being "an acting powerhouse" based on its many emotional themes. Erin Aubry Kaplan wrote on
Salon.com that the question posed by the film is how to assess the "hopeless story of a ghetto teen... in the Age of Obama." She went on to say that "'Precious' proves you don't always have to choose between artistic and commercial success; the film's first opening weekend was record-breaking. It's a sign how much we needed to tell this story. And, perhaps, how many stories there are left to tell."
A. O. Scott identified the script's precise use of force and adept use of language, including a memorable line created by Fletcher for the adaptation: a "risky, remarkable film adaptation, written by Geoffrey Fletcher, the facts of Precious's life are also laid out with unsparing force (though not in overly graphic detail). But just as
Push achieves an eloquence that makes it far more than a fictional diary of extreme dysfunction, so too does
Precious avoid the traps of well-meaning, preachy lower-depths realism. It howls and stammers, but it also sings...Inarticulate and emotionally shut down, her massive body at once a prison and a hiding place, Precious is also perceptive and shrewd, possessed of talents visible only to those who bother to look. At its plainest and most persuasive, her story is that of a writer discovering a voice. 'These people talked like TV stations I didn't even watch,' she remarks of Ms. Rain and her partner (Kimberly Russell), displaying her awakening literary intelligence even as she marvels at the discovery of her ignorance." Conversely, reflecting the transformation from script to screen,
Dana Stevens of
Slate disagreed with Gleiberman's suggestion that the "film makes you think" and argued that the film's "eagerness" to "drag" the audience "through the lower depths of human experience" leaves little space for independent "conclusions". Stevens noted that, while the film is about improvement and self-actualization, "it wields an awfully large cudgel", in contrast to Scott's view of balance: "unsparing force (though not in overly graphic detail)". Perhaps sharing Mathews's view regarding the daunting challenge of adapting the harsh story of
Push, Stevens observed that "Daniels and Fletcher no doubt intended for their film to lend a voice to the kind of protagonist too often excluded from American movie screens: a poor, black, overweight single mother from the inner city."
Precious also received some negative responses from critics. Writing for the
New York Press,
Armond White compared the film to the landmark but controversial
The Birth of a Nation (1915) as "demeaning the idea of black American life," calling it "an orgy of
prurience" and the "con job of the year." He further characterized the source novel as a relic of 1990s
identity politics and noted that the film "casts light-skinned actors as kind [...] and dark-skinned actors as terrors." In two separate articles, writers for
The New York Times cited White's article as the most powerful negative review of
Precious, adding that in a 2009 interview he had remarked that the film's popularity is a result of the "fact" that "black pathology sells."
Courtland Milloy of
The Washington Post said
Precious was "a film of prurient interest that has about as much redeeming social value as a porn flick."
David Edelstein, of
New York Magazine commented that, while the film has "elements" that are "powerful and shocking," he felt the movie was "programmed", and that the film had "its own study guide." Keith Uhlich of
Time Out New York felt that the film did not live up to its "long hype", and felt that it was "bewildering" to discover the film's praise at the Sundance Film Festival, because Uhlich characterized the film as having "shrug-worthiness."
Peter Bradshaw wrote in
The Guardian that the film catalogues a "horrendous, unending nightmare of abuse" and then abruptly turns into something resembling the 1980s musical
Fame. Bradshaw commended the film's acting and energy, but said it was not quite the "transcendent masterpiece" some had made it out to be. Sukhdev Sandhu wrote in
The Daily Telegraph that he found the film "a dispiriting mix of cliché and melodrama," although he acknowledged that
Precious does feature some superb acting. Noting Daniels's admiration of the work of
John Waters and
Pedro Almodóvar and the joking attitude he and the actors sometimes took towards their material while making the movie, Jim Emerson argued that
Precious is best understood as a deliberately over-the-top piece of
camp in the vein of Waters's
Female Trouble.
Accolades Precious received dozens of nominations in award categories, including six Academy Award nominations, not only for the film itself but for the cast's performances, the direction and cinematography, and the adaptation of the novel to the screenplay. Director Lee Daniels won the
People's Choice Award, an award given by audience members at the
2009 Toronto International Film Festival. Daniels won both awards for which he was nominated at the San Sebastián International Film Festival—the TVE Otra Mirada Award and the Audience Award. He was also nominated in the category of Bronze Horse at the Stockholm Film Festival, and won the Best Feature Film Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival.
Precious received five awards at the 2009
Independent Spirit Awards (ISA) in the categories for Best Film, Best First Screenplay, Best Direction, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.
Precious received nominations from the 67th Golden Globes for the film and for Mo'Nique and Sidibe; Mo'Nique won Best Supporting Actress. The film was nominated in all three major categories at the
2009 Screen Actor Guild Awards: Best Cast, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress (in which Mo'Nique won).
Precious was considered for the
BAFTA awards in several categories, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Leading Actress (Sidibe), and Best Supporting Actress (Mo'Nique). On February 2, 2010, the film received Academy Award nominations at the
Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actress (Sidibe), Best Supporting Actress (Mo'Nique), Best Director (Daniels), Best Adapted Screenplay (Fletcher), and Best Film Editing (Klotz). On March 7, 2010, Mo'Nique and Fletcher won Academy Awards in their respective categories. The film was also nominated for a
GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding Film – Wide Release" during the
21st GLAAD Media Awards. ==See also==