Written Interview: Geoffrey Fletcher ("Precious")

One of the more noteworthy movies of 2009 is Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. As of today, it has grossed over $45M at the box office, a remarkable achievement for a film with a small budget ($10M) and some very rough subject matter. Per IMDB.com:

Clareece Precious Jones endures unimaginable hardships in her young life. Abused by her mother, raped by her father, she grows up poor, angry, illiterate, fat, unloved and generally unnoticed. She is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction.

The fact that the film has found an audience with both viewers and critics (it has received 48 award nominations) suggests that people have found the story to be compelling -- and that story was adapted for the screen by Geoffrey Fletcher. From the introduction to this interview with the WGA, we learn about Fletcher's background:

The novel is an alchemical balance of despair and hope, so the hard question becomes, what screenwriter could translate such a visceral, one-of-a-kind story to the screen?

The answer is Geoffrey Fletcher. Never heard of him? That’s a big part of why he’s the answer. There is seemingly no connection, other than race, between him and this film’s title character. He’s a man who grew up in Connecticut in an upper middle-class household, went to a tony prep school and graduated from both Harvard and N.Y.U. film school where he focused on directing. In the end, however, Precious is about the desperate yearning to find one’s voice and to have it heard, and that’s what gave Fletcher a magic key to the heart of this story. He has lived long on the outside of his greatest passion and absorbed deeply how it feels.

Beyond being an African American often working in predominantly white circles, he’s toiled for well more than a decade struggling to get his voice as a writer and filmmaker heard and wondering if it ever would. It’s not Precious’ circumstantial struggle, but it’s made of the same essential stuff.

Some excerpts from the interview:

Tell me how you came to this project?

Photo: © 2009 Lionsgate Lenny Kravitz and Gabourey Sidibe in Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' By Sapphire.

Lee Daniels saw a short film I’d written, shot, directed, and edited and was really taken by it, and he asked if I would get involved in this project. I had never heard of the book. I’m both grateful and embarrassed to admit that. I’m embarrassed because it’s such a great work of art with a great following. I’m grateful because that might have intimidated or affected me in some way and inhibited my freedom in adapting it.

So, in a way, your ignorance of the book allowed you to come to this material clean and fresh?

Exactly. I came to it fresh and without any preconceptions or fear of changing things. I think it would have inhibited to some degree the freedom with which I felt I could approach it.

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Do you feel as though you maybe grafted your own personal emotional journey onto that of Precious?

These are excellent questions. I mean, really. Precisely. There are a number of specific experiences or theories or things that I’ve studied that worked their way into Precious. Feeling on the outside and feeling like you have something to offer on the inside that other people may or may not see, I can relate to those feelings so strongly. I think it’s partly why I related to Precious so strongly and made sure to use those experiences. Looking back on all the time I felt like an outsider with an uncertain future— I mean, I don’t think anyone has a certain future in this industry or isn’t always hustling to see what’s next— but I wouldn’t trade those difficult days for anything because those experiences make one a better storyteller. They add depth, dimension, and truth to one’s work.

It's a short interview, but an inspirational one. For a decade, Fletcher toiled in obscurity. Then he got his break with this project. And when he got it, he took everything he had learned about writing - and life - and put it to use in his adaptation. You can read the whole thing here.