Brutal ‘Precious’ Trailer Debuts On Oprah

Lee Daniels’ “Precious” (formerly known as the film “Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire”) was the big drama narrative winner at the Sundance Film Festival and the powerhouse marketing teams of Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and and Tyler Perry’s 34th Street Films quickly backed the film. So it’s no surprise that Oprah debuted the trailer today on her site.

The film centers on an overweight and illiterate African-American teen (Gabourey Sidibe) who is pregnant with her second child, but invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction. However, she has to deal with her ridiculing peers in 1980s Harlem, plus a super-abusive mother who is played by, of all people, comedian Mo’Nique, who is said to be amazing (she earned a special jury prize for her performance).

The timing of the newly-revealed trailer is rather perfect, because the film is also playing in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival this weekend. When’s the film coming out proper? Good question, Lionsgate — who ostensibly owns it — and the Weinstein Company are still involved in a legal battle over the film. Paula Patton and Mariah Carey co-star. The trailer is pretty brutal in spots and the film has been called, “harrowing,” more than once. Mo’Nique looks utterly fierce and no, we’re not joking.

Here’s the synopsis:

Set in Harlem in 1987, it is the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), a sixteen-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo’Nique), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write.