I’m a junior at Montclair State University and just added a minor in criminal justice. My favorite class right now is my criminal justice writing course. For this class, we have to watch one film and write a paper on it. I assumed this would just be any other class, where I would take it and forget about it years later. My professor picked the film “Precious” for me, and I thought it would be an alright film. After watching it, I was shocked about how much of an impact it had on me.

In the Oxford dictionary, the word precious can be defined as “of great value; not to be wasted or treated carelessly.” This was the exact opposite way that Claireece Precious Jones was treated by her mother and father in the movie “Precious”. This movie takes place in 1987 in Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Precious lives with her unemployed mother, Mary, and lives off of welfare checks. Precious had a daughter with down syndrome, who lives with Precious’ grandmother. Precious is also pregnant again, by her own father. After her principal discovers that Precious is pregnant again, without realizing that it was caused by incest, Precious is sent to an alternative school for troubled teens.

Precious begins attending an alternative school, called Each One Teach One, and begins to learn how to read and write. Her teacher, Blu Rain, teaches five other troubled teenage girls skills that they need in order to get their GED. Every day, Ms. Rain forces Precious to write about her life and receives help from Ms. Rain. Meanwhile, Precious visits her social worker, Ms. Weiss, and lies about her home life. Precious denies being raped by her own father, or that her mother abuses her. Precious does admit to her mother pretending to have Precious’ first child living in their home and pretending to look for a job. Before Precious leaves, she also admits to being kicked in the head by her mother and giving birth at home.

Precious continues to go to school until she goes into labor with her second child, a baby boy. While in the hospital, she is being cared for by a male nursing student named, John McFadden, who shows kindness to Precious. Precious’ class visit her and her baby, Abdul, in the hospital. While away from Each One Teach One, Precious writes back and forth to Ms. Blue about the incest and possible adoption. Precious decides to keep her son, while getting an education, and trying to pass her GEDs.

When Precious returns home from the hospital, Precious’ mother ends up severely abusing Precious and dropping Abdul. Mary is angry at Precious for stealing her boyfriend, having a baby, and being cut off welfare. Mary then tries to drop a TV onto Precious and Abdul’s heads, after Precious smashes the TV. Precious decides to run away from home, and breaks into Each One Teach One for the night. Precious is found by Ms. Rain and explains that she has nowhere for her and Abdul to live. Temporality, Precious and Abdul live with Ms. Blue and her partner. While there, they celebrate Christmas and live happily and safely together. Precious explains that her grandmother is scared of her mother, thus she can not live with her grandmother. Eventually, Precious and Abdul live in a halfway home and she continues to go to school.

After continuing her education, Precious’ mother asks to speak to Precious. There, Precious learns that her father died from AIDs, and discovers that she is HIV positive but her children do not have the virus. Precious breaks down in class and admits to everyone about her HIV, the incest, and not being loved. Ms. Rain explains that the abuse was not loved, and Precious has other people besides her parents that truly love her.

Finally, Precious, Ms. Weiss, and Mary meet together to discuss Precious’ sexual abuse. Precious was first being abused at the age of three years old. Mary believes though that it was Precious’ fault for being sexually abused because Precious never stopped her father. Mary was verbally abused by her boyfriend, thus allowed him to rape Precious. Mary was jealous of Precious because he “wanted” Precious over Mary. Mary claims that she did not have anyone to love her, and is also a victim of Precious’ brother. Mary reunites Precious with her daughter. Precious finally leaves with both her children, gets her GED, and has a brighter and safer future.

After watching this film, I had an epiphany on my own life. While life can be difficult, you just need a supportive adult into a positive influence on life. Precious needed Ms. Rain to improve her own future. While my own life has never been hard as Precious, I realized that all of my problems were fixed because I had my own Ms. Rain.