MANILA, Philippines— If you can’t count on your family to make you feel safe and secure, to whom can you turn? Sadly, domestic violence is just as virulent and cyclical in this country as it is anywhere in the world. Take Lee Daniels’ “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” and Joel Lamangan’s “Sagrada Familia.”

The former pulls no punches as it tackles the horrors of domestic abuse and incestuous rape. But, these dark themes resonate even more when they’re brought closer to home, as Lamangan’s cautionary tale grippingly dramatizes.

No love lost

“Precious” tells the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones (played by Gabourey Sidibe), an illiterate and obese African-American who, at age 16, is pregnant with her second child, courtesy of her AIDS-stricken father. Worse, there’s no love lost between Precious and her chain-smoking, jobless mother, Mary (Mo’Nique), who hits her daughter every chance she gets—she even throws the TV set at her daughter and drops her grandson on the floor during a hissy fit!

To cushion the blows, the teenage mother turns to her fertile imagination for comfort—by imagining herself as a famous white actress, sexy model or pop star.

But, Precious’ luck changes for the better when she is sent to an alternative school for troubled youngsters. There, she meets a nurturing teacher (Paula Patton), an affable male nurse (Lenny Kravitz), and a sympathetic social worker (Mariah Carey) who make her realize there’s more to life than misery, mendicancy and misfortune.

Daniels fills the screen with moments that astutely convey the bile and venom of hatred and familial estrangement. What sets his movie apart from similarly-themed films is the fact that he doesn’t allow his luckless protagonist to completely succumb to all the doom and gloom—he provides Precious with a flickering light at the end of the tunnel that she can aspire to.

Bringing the production’s relevant themes and brooding characters to scorching life is its first-rate cast, led by outstanding newcomer, Sidibe, who displays talent that’s even bigger than her physical size; the beautifully restrained and hardly recognizable Carey, and the Oscar-worthy Mo’Nique, who injects soul into her character’s shocking monstrosity.

Precious’ tale of abuse is not much different from Katrina Asero’s story in the emotionally charged “Sagrada Familia,” which plays out like a riveting Shakespearean tragedy. Kat’s (Lovi Poe) grim reality is rife with characters that are unmistakably Pinoy: She has a hard-to-please, disciplinarian grandfather (Robert Arevalo) and a domineering grandmother, Carmen (Gloria Diaz).

Kat’s dad (Emilio Garcia) is a spineless underachiever who
derives his guts from his gun. And, like 12 million other Filipinos who want a better future for their loved ones, her doting mother (Snooky Serna) is forced to leave her family behind to work abroad—but, at what price?

Indelible portrayals

Lamangan’s latest film, which is showing this week, is occasionally overwrought, especially toward the end—but, it’s also his best work in years, given the number of clunkers he’s come up with of late. It boasts of a tightly woven narrative that is as provocative as it is relevant, and is further boosted by indelible portrayals from its impressive cast, most notably Diaz, Garcia, Serna and the ever-evolving Poe, who’s even better here than in the recent “Walang Hanggang Paalam.”

Diaz has always been a likable and whip-smart actress. In this movie, however, she boldly ventures into the thespic unknown—and delivers the best performance of her career. She breaches her dramatic ceiling by effectively mining the hopelessness and irony of her character’s situation, which breathtakingly comes to the fore when it finally dawns on Carmen that she’s gotten more than she bargained for!