Precious didn't wow me. Sure the movie is worth seeing, the story is one of a kind, but Lee Daniels' film adaptation of the ghetto-novella by Sapphire ends up being more manipulative than moving (Daniels falls back on easy, indie devices to try to strengthen his message). What I really liked in the film wasn't Precious, the 350 pound illiterate teenage mother; it was the variety of characters, chosen to compliment Precious in her alternative classroom. There's Cunsuelo, the Puerto Rican slut; Jermaine, the butch chic with a scary facial scar from the Bronx; Rhonda, the sassy Jamaican with an amazing bronze perm; and Joann, the self-obsessed, knock-out with aspirations of music industry stardom, who appears in a range of retro-hip outfits accessorized with a stick of gum and a mouth full of continuous chatter. These girls made the film real to me, and added a full pallet of style for those who prefer OG attitude to fried pigs feet.