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The buzz is at a fever pitch for this movie and for good reason. At least a couple Oscar nominations are guaranteed for this amazingly painful and compelling tale of adversity and ultimately survival.

Based on the 1996 award-winning novel Push by Sapphire, the story, set in 1987 Harlem, follows the tortured and dark life of Clarisse Precious Jones. The obese, illiterate, and pregnant (for the second time by her AIDS infected father) 16-year-old somehow still gets up every morning and makes her way to school, even when her abusive and clearly mentally ill mother thinks she would be better served spending her time at the welfare office.

Director Lee Daniels takes on the challenge of bringing this blistering story, with the help of screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, to the screen. Author Sapphire reports that she initially turned him down when he approached her about making the book into a film, but changed her mind after she saw his 2005 directorial debut “Shadowboxer”

Daniels is no stranger to bringing less than attractive, and more often than not, challenging allegories to audience’s attention. Over the last ten years he has tackled issue of racism, pedophilia, and assassins engaged in pseudo incestuous relationships; so one could easily concede that Push was a natural fit in his portfolio.

An Official Selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and winner of three awards at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, “Precious” stars Gabourey 'Gabby' Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, and Lenny Kravitz.

Gabourey Sidibe

Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, in the role of Precious, has everyone talking. Mostly about how different she is from the character that she so convincingly plays. Discovered during an open audition, Sidibe embodies every inch of Precious. Her face seems to easily transform into this blank, but painful mask that barely hides the despair that hangs over her on a daily basis. But it is her three hundred pound body that makes her a target of street hoods and her predatory father. Sexually abused since age three, and pregnant for the first time at 12, it seems the bigger she gets the more her humanity is disregarded. She copes the only way she knows how by constructing fantasy worlds where she is adored by “light-skinned boyfriends” and gets to walk red carpets