_Critical Movie Review - cyc607

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Dec 6, 2023

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1 Critical Movie Review Department of Child and Youth Care: Toronto Metropolitan University CYC 607: Therapeutic Assessment Professor Hangama Ahmadzai October 27, 2023

2 "Love ain't done nothing for me." Claireece "Precious" Jones once uttered in a moment of need. Claireece Precious Jones, commonly known as Precious, is a young girl living in the heart of poverty and despair in 1980s Harlem. When Precious was three, she was raped by her father, Carl, who had impregnated her with her first child, Mongoloid, Mongo for short, who has Down Syndrome. From the first time Precious's mother, Mary, had found out about the sexual abuse Precious was subjected to, she had seen her in a different light. Mary then treated Precious as insignificant and worthless, verbally, physically, emotionally, and sexually abusing her. As Precious experiences the abuse, she starts to feel stupid, ugly, and fat. She is constantly reminded of how her father raped her and how she did "not" try to stop him, making her feel dirty. Despite that, she still had her first daughter, Mongo, who lived with her grandmother, as her mother did not allow Precious to see her. Precious only sees Mongo when her mother forces them to pretend that Mongo lives with them so they can receive extra money from the government. However, after that, her grandmother immediately takes Mongo away and is not seen until the next visit by the social worker. It seemed like her mother only wanted Precious for the welfare money they received, as when her second pregnancy was discovered, Mrs. Lichtenstein had no choice but to dismiss her from the school. When Precious mother found out, she was forced to go down to the welfare centre to receive help from the services of the welfare. While there, she disclosed some events in her household, resulting in revoking their welfare checks and her mother becoming aggressive. That demonstrates how her mother did not care about Precious and only wanted to stay home, unemployed while using the welfare check they received. Precious lives in a constant loop where she can never escape this life. She goes to school, learns nothing, but gets good grades. However, she looks forward to her math class, where she sees Mr. Wicher, her math teacher. Precious does not talk; she sits in the back, listening as she

3 daydreams about her and Mr. Wicher, genuinely believing he has feelings for her. Precious seems to rely on those fantasies to escape her reality as she looks through her photo album in her dresser drawer, imagining the photos coming to life, talking to her, and trying to comfort her. As Precious lives through her days with the same repetitive routine of daydreaming, one day, her fantasies get disrupted by Mr. Wicher, who directs her to the office, where she is dismissed and referred to an alternative school. Although she is given a chance to receive "higher education," Precious's mother thinks otherwise, calling her stupid and saying she will never know things. However, Precious ignores her mother's demands to get on welfare and curiously heads to the alternative school. She meets her new teacher, Ms. Blue Rain, and different girls enrolled in the school to escape their home situations and get their GED. Even though Precious was slightly excited to learn, she had the fixed mindset that she was dumb due to her mother's constant verbal abuse, calling her "stupid," and due to that, she has a fixed mindset that she will never be able to learn because "no black person is smart in Harlem." However, after meeting Ms. Rain, Precious's life begins to turn around as she gets inspired by Ms. Rain to write, even though she believes she is dumb and incompetent. Ms. Rain believes in Precious, pushing her to continue to write every day, waiting for Ms. Rain to write back. Precious's determination to get her GED allows her to persevere through her hardships, especially when she is due to give birth to her son, Abdul. Precious seemed so happy to hold Abdul; she wanted to be an excellent mother to Mongo and Abdul. That shows how even though she goes through traumatic events in her life, she still looks at some positive things, such as her two children. As Precious had not been home in a long while, her mother had acted like she suddenly cared about her newborn grandson, which made Precious trust her with him, allowing her to hold him. Again, her mother failed to change, as she purposefully dropped Abdul, violently attacking Precious, because of how the welfare checks

4 were cut off since the abuse was revealed to the welfare social worker, Ms. Weiss. She then flees, taking shelter with Ms. Rain and her girlfriend, Katherine. Precious persevered as her mother came to see her, informing her that her father had died of AIDS, resulting in her discovering that she was HIV-positive. Her mother returns, with Mongo, with hopes that Precious and her children will come back to her, but is confronted by Ms. Weiss, who asks Mary why she allowed Precious to be abused. Precious, hurt and heartbroken, sever her ties with her mother, as Mary confesses to "hating" Precious because she "took" her man, causing him to leave. Precious leaves with a hurt but light heart with Mongo and Abdul, determined to make her future brighter, as she walks towards her GED high school diploma, followed by a college degree. Precious mentions how she wished she was normal, where she could sit in front of the class and work with others, and despite her being HIV-positive, she will continue to aim for that possibility, wishing for a better life for Mongo and Abdul. Claireece Precious Jones is an African-American sixteen-year-old who struggled to live but lived. As Precious continued living with these hardships, a prominent theme was "Hopelessness" and "Detachment." Throughout the movie, Precious mentions that she does not want to be alive and that everything feels hopeless. Precious demonstrates detachment, as she often did not feel emotionally interested in things, even math class, which she did enjoy, however, only because she did not have to do anything other than sit there and daydream about Mr. Wicher. The constant abuse she experienced affected her mentally as she had no outlet to relieve her from the burden she had to carry. This affects Precious as she cannot remain optimistic, only seeing the bad in the world. For Precious, everything was going wrong; She lost Mongo, got pregnant, and was removed from school. It felt never-ending, as she just wanted to feel "normal." She wanted the life of her classmates; she wanted to make friends, sit in front of

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