Ahead of its U.S. release this week, there is a wave of mild surprise in the blogosphere over the fact that “Precious,” the film deemed by some (yours truly included) to be the present Best Picture frontrunner, is currently sitting on a lowly Metacritic score of 57. Fitting neatly with the largely media-fabricated talk of a backlash against the film, some commenters are citing this rather arbitrary number as a debit against the film’s chances.
As much as I’d personally like that to believe that — and as relieved as I am to see that I’m not the only person who didn’t respond to the film – such talk will doubtless be short-lived, given the paucity of reviews making up the current score and the likelihood of raves to come. If anything, public support is more crucial than critical consensus to this film’s campaign – if audiences don’t turn up to see this grim, minority-oriented indie, many Academy members won’t feel compelled to either.
That said, it looks increasingly possible that “Precious” (I refuse to use that lumpy subtitle all season, by the way) could turn out to be a more critically divisive item than might have been expected following an ecstatically received festival run.