Lee Daniels' controversial new film "Precious" finally arrived in Pittsburgh last week. While I didn't love it, I have no problem recommending it to thoughtful people looking for a reasonable alternative to that other racial uplift film in theaters, "The Blind Side."

The full name of the film is a mouthful: "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire." The title character is an obese 17-year-old Harlem teenager (played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) who finds herself pregnant for the second time by her father, who has left the apartment for good.

Precious' first child has Down syndrome and lives with her grandmother. Her mother, Mary, played by the comedienne Mo'Nique, is verbally and physically abusive. Precious lives like an indentured servant, cooking in their apartment. Mary spends her days sprawled in front of the television smoking, trying on wigs and eating pigs' feet.

Despite better-than-average grades in school, Precious is functionally illiterate. She knows the alphabet, but that's about it. Still, she is a scholar compared to the other kids.

Precious gets an unexpected break from a school counselor who arranges for her to transfer to an alternative school where she gets the attention she needs from a caring teacher. She also forges close bonds with her classmates in an intimate all-girl setting after initially keeping them at arms' length.

No one waves a magic wand to make Precious' life better. Her path to redemption begins with literacy -- not weight reduction or parenting class. Though she has many challenges, including an apocalyptic showdown with Mary that is nearly impossible to watch, Precious moves inexorably toward something resembling a dignified life by the time the end credits roll.

Fortunately, the kind of folks inclined to see "Precious" aren't likely to interpret its often gritty and despairing tone as the last word on black life in America. Most viewers will be savvy enough to understand that the "truth" that a film like "Precious" occupies represents a very narrow segment of black life.

Still, "Precious" has been received with more ambivalence and hostility by the black intelligentsia than any film since Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" nine years ago.

Film critic Armond White called "Precious" a "carnival of black degradation" and "a sociological horror show" offering "racist hysteria masquerading as social sensitivity."

Writing at www.theroot.com, senior culture writer Teresa Wiltz insisted that the film's "rage and venom and jaw-dropping cruelty" doesn't diminish the fact it is "also a thing of beauty, aural, visual, spiritual beauty found in the most unlikely of places."

That's quite a range of opinion, but nothing new for black filmmakers who have to ignore the burden of representation laid on their shoulders by tribal orthodoxy on one hand and excessive critical nitpicking on the other.

"I liked it," said Chris Ivey, a local black filmmaker who saw the film with a predominantly African-American audience during its Pittsburgh debut at the Three Rivers Film Festival several weeks ago. "It's a powerful film, but people shouldn't get over-hyped about it," he said.

Though Mr. Ivey had generally good things to say about "Precious," he quickly added that it was a film he probably wouldn't watch in its entirety again.

"I'll watch pieces of it," he said. "Mo'Nique's performance is amazing. She's this year's Heath Ledger," he said, referring to the late actor's final performance as the Joker in "The Dark Knight."

Much, but not all, of the blow-back may be a manifestation of black folks' perennial anxiety: "What will the white folks think of us if they see this?"

The fact that Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, the two most powerful African-Americans in the media business, executive-produced "Precious" is also a concern for those who hate their aesthetic politics.

The best film of the year is a dark comedy by the Coen brothers called "A Serious Man." Set in suburbia in the late 1960s, it is about the travails of a Jewish high school physics teacher who suspects God has inexplicably turned his face against him. Though it is an affectionate portrayal of Midwestern Jewry, some consider it unflattering at best and anti-Semitic at worst.

Perhaps the truest sign that something is a work of art is that it has to be misunderstood by the people who should love it the most.

Tony's Take on Comix by Tony Norman is featured exclusively in the Opinion section on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.