Before seeing "Precious," I grappled with the decision to go see a movie that was sure to be filled with disturbing images and heartbreaking scenes. After finally coming to the conclusion that my desire to see the film outweighed my hesitance to be pained, I was shocked to find myself laughing out loud in the movie theater.

Through the narration of Clareece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe), Lee Daniels's film focuses on the hardships of an overweight 16-year-old who is still in middle school and reads at only a 2nd grade level. When the movie opens, Precious is pregnant with her second child as a result of being raped by her father, who also impregnated her with her first child. As if this was not enough heavy material for one film, within the first minutes, the audience is hit with horrifying scenes of physical abuse and biting verbal attacks by Mary (Mo'nique), Precious's mother, towards her daughter. Later, the agonies of HIV and homelessness are added to the list of depressing subjects.

And still, I laughed. When Precious enters an alternative school, she is joined by a group of classmates who provide the necessary comic relief. A Jamaican immigrant, an overly imaginative ditsy type, a tough-loving Latin girl and two others make up the ragtag group of teenage students who can barely form written sentences, but have quite a lot to say. Precious herself brings a smile and chuckle with her dreams of stardom and witty commentary.

While Sidibe and Mo'Nique were undoubtedly convincing in their roles, Mo'Nique almost scarily so as an abusive mother, the abundance of issues often made it hard to concentrate on the seriousness of each. At every second, a new setback was introduced, making it difficult to feel as if the previous focus had been fully explored and explained. Precious moved from first child to second child, from 2nd grade reading to 8th grade reading, from homelessness to living on her own, from grieving to smiling, from raped to HIV positive, so quickly that it was nearly impossible to get a sense of how she dealt with each setback. However, the negative could also be considered a positive, as it helps to make the movie realistic. In a life such as that of Precious's, bad follows bad, and there is not time to sit around and delve on each situation.

As for the other minor characters, Lenny Kravitz played a quiet but well-meaning Nurse John while Mariah Carey played a welfare worker. Although Carey shed her makeup, she still was not a completely natural, worn out caseworker. Paula Patton, as Precious's teacher, Ms. Rain, provided the inspirational tone to the movie without making her scenes into a sappy mush of emotions.

"Precious" will bring tears to your eyes, or at least force you to give a second thought to people you normally would not. At the same time, it will entertain you, which lends credit to the movie's tagline that above all, life is "precious."