Three days ago the Gotham Independent Awards made some noise when they completely snubbed Lee Daniels’ Oscar-touted Sundance film, “Precious.”
We’re behind on our reviews, but we saw “Precious” at NYFF and are not having it. It’s filled with strong performances, but stylistically it’s a mess and flawed enough that in our mind it shouldn’t be a Best Picture contender. So we were fine with the snub, but any fuel that might have taken out of its Oscar sails has been overtaken by a preposterously long New York Times Magazine profile (it’s 5,600 words).
While we haven’t parsed the entire feature yet, one part kind of leaps out at us and feels rather presumptuous. Of the film, “Monster’s Ball,” which won Halle Berry an Academy Award for Best Actress, he says, “I kind of co-directed ‘Monster’s Ball.’ I gave Halle her line readings. I knew how to do that: you tap into people’s souls.”
Very cool. Can you give us a soul reading then Mr. Daniels? We wonder what actual “Monster’s Ball” director Marc Forster has to say about this. We will give Daniels that he can coach great performances out of actors (even Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz are excellent in “Precious”), but his direction and eyesores of stylistic conceits? Yeah, those could use some major work. Still, “Precious” could be this year’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” especially due to the Oprah factor. Let’s hope not, though we’re all for Mo’Nique and Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe scoring nominations and possibly even winning.
People keep talking about the “Precious” backlash, but is it a backlash if you genuinely never enjoyed the picture in the first place (and three Playlist writers have seen it and generally feel the same way)? It’s not that it’s overrated, it’s just a decent picture with great performances that are constantly emotionally and narratively undermined by its helmer.
