The Hurt Locker

Precious:

In Harlem, overweight, illiterate teen Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) – pregnant with her second child by insidious circumstances and forever stalked by her hate-filled mother (Mo’nique) – is invited to enrol in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction.

Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, this is a bleak telling of a girl forever put down, facing hardship after hardship with very little in the way of reprieve. It’s a story that needs telling; this voiceless person needs a voice, and like many tragic stories the simple act of telling in a small way allows some semblance of justice.

Like the utterly magnificent Last Ride, Precious explores the damaging and perpetuating effects of abusive parents. But where the former had an assured sense of its purpose, tone and style, with Precious director Lee Daniels seems caught in the middle. Fantasy scenes – where Precious imagines herself as a famous model – should have been cut or fleshed out. In similarly bleak offerings Dancer in the Dark and Pan’s Labyrinth fantasy was woven expertly into the fabric of the story, here they feel dropped in to break tension. The film also has a sporadic voiceover by Precious; it’s exclusion would have made the film more powerful.

This said, the central performances are very strong, culminating in a powerful scene between newcomer Sidibe and Golden Globe winner Mo’nique in a social worker’s office. Co-produced by Oprah Winfrey, starring a surprisingly unglamorous Mariah Carey, and a low-key Lenny Kravitz, you can tell this story and its subject means a lot to a lot of people, and it’s adaptation to the screen should be admired. Combined with the central performers makes Precious worth watching despite it narrative flaws. Not a first date flick, though.

The Road:

Not having read the original novel by Cormac McCarthy, it’s hard to comment on the difficulty of making a film out of this story, but I’m gonna do it anyway. It’s phenomenal that such a sparse plot, maintains so much tension. Throughout our journey as a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) wade through a post-apocalyptic hell towards some faint dream of hope on the coast; director John Hillcoat keeps us on the hook. He tweaks our empathy beautifully and we walk out feeling tired, hungry, cold; and horrified at what our species can do to each other.

Mortensen is brilliant, epitomising ‘haggard’ from the inside out. Smit-McPhee is slightly less inspiring but still provides many strong and intense moments. The rest of the cast is mainly bit-parts, which occupy various stages of a sliding scale of quality. There’s no real single antagonist, because the world itself has become the enemy. The ash, the cold, the constant and ever-present death – not to mention the fact that cannibalism is the most common delivery tool for this end – keep us captivated and uncomfortable.

Overall, The Road isn’t up to the adaptation of other McCarthy novel No Country For Old Men but that’s an especially high bar considering the team behind that film. It’s too bleak to be really enjoyed by any but the most pessimistic of audience members but will impress with its atmosphere, and the long-lingering mood.