Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

Lee Daniels took the film to Sundance in 2009 without a distributor, as Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire; the title changed later to avoid confusion with an action picture called Push released that year. It won three prizes: the dramatic Grand Jury Prize, the Audience Award, and a Special Jury Prize for acting to Mo’Nique. Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry came on as promotional partners only after Sundance; until then, Daniels says, he expected it to go straight to DVD. It was Gabourey Sidibe’s first acting role. Daniels has said he was embarrassed to screen it at Cannes, that he did not want to exploit black people and was unsure about white French audiences seeing this world. Another stated aim was to unsettle the common view of incest. At the 82nd Academy Awards it drew six nominations and two wins: Actress in a Supporting Role (Mo’Nique) and Adapted Screenplay (Geoffrey Fletcher), the first African American to win a writing Oscar. The four it lost were Best Picture, Directing, Actress in a Leading Role (Sidibe) and Film Editing. A good fit if you can take a recovery cut across in the same stretch by an HIV diagnosis, so the ending never fully clears. Not for anyone who cannot sit through incest, beatings and child abuse shown head on.