If we see the movie unilaterally form Precious’ point of view, it is she is abused by her mother physically and verbally. In addition to our sympathy for Precious, we should take more consideration to the discrepancy of the mother and daughter’s interaction. For Precious, though be maltreated by her tyrannical mother, she still has beautiful dreams in her mind. Precious encounters all the unimaginable unfortunate events in her life, but she finds her way at the end of the movie. Despite all the misfortune Precious comes across, her genuine mind makes the people around her willing to help her which lead her life upward gradually. For Mary’s part (the mother), we have to think what kind of life she had lived and what kind of environment and people she had met that make her into a such monstrous figure. In the film Mary not only abuses Precious to release her oppressed emotion but her action could almost considered as self-abuse. Mary avoids to pursuit a better life for her family rather she chooses to live on others and complain all day long. Is it because her mother and the man she has chose leads to her misery outcome or she just made her own bed to her misery fate? Should such a role like Mary be sympathized or be spurned like the social worker did in the end of the film?
