“Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” as its official title so juridically disclaims, the new film “Precious” limns the life of an abused, obese, illiterate, pregnant Harlem high schooler looking for a way out of her unequivocally miserable circumstances.

And hell if I know how race exploitation may or may not figure into it, or what it means for the future of black indie film. I just know a good movie when I have one marketed to me! Even the poster’s pretty great, albeit in a highly discomfiting, innocence-shattering way. On that score, the movie’s even, um, better?

Affecting a poetry of piled-on pain, screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher and director Lee Daniels (”Shadowboxer”) do come awfully close to something like victimization porn, but it’s not for nothing that they’ve racked up festival accolades (including awards from both the jury and the audience at Sundance), prominent approval from Oprah and Tyler Perry, and lots of Oscar buzz. Right?

Now, you may think I just can’t understand, or that I’m overpraising this film for reasons of political correctness. You may think that lead actress Gabourey Sidibe is having a Susan Boyle moment of misdirected public pity, and I’m just part of the problem.

Well, let me tell you: No, sir (or ma’am). I totally relate to “Precious.” Really, I do.

You see, I once lived in a miserable apartment full of cats and daytime television and burnt-butter-colored light myself. True, at the time, I wasn’t being beaten by my raging welfare-addicted mother (played by Mo’Nique) or repeatedly raped by my deadbeat father while mom impassively smoked a cigarette nearby. What, do you really wish that I had been? No, none of that, thank God. But I do remember very specifically that there were several slow fades to black during that period, usually when I was falling asleep in my entirely safe and secure but still lonely bed.

Also, my Connecticut prep school was less than 150 miles from Harlem. That’s just a two-hour drive! While at school, I may or may not have had a delicately beautiful, light-skinned black woman for a teacher (played by Paula Patton), whose mouth I watched very closely when she said, simply, “Try.” I did keep a journal, though, that much you can count on. And every day I told myself, “Somethin’ gonna happen,” just like Precious does (although with more careful enunciation, on account of being a dorky suburban white kid), while gentle opalescent light poured in through the classroom windows just as if all of God’s angels were right outside. Also like Precious, I did barf in an alley one time. And, occasionally, some of the people who tried to help me with things had weary faces. (Which reminds me: My never paying attention to anything Mariah Carey does should in no way disqualify her performance as a welfare caseworker here from being the best thing I’ve ever seen her do.)

So OK, maybe I never thought of myself as “just ugly black grease to be wiped away.” But maybe that’s just because I lacked imagination. I was young. What did I know of the world then? Now I know so much. Oh so much. I know that the world can be very threatening, and that Lenny Kravitz can be very nonthreatening. I appreciate that the makers of “Precious” know these things too.

This film really put things in perspective for me. It reminded me, for instance, that it is so much better to be some random white male film critic nowadays than it was to be Claireece Precious Jones 20-odd years ago! If giving “Precious” a good grade on those grounds counts as favoritism, well then so be it.

Yes, the movie will have its detractors. But if I may borrow a phrase, “They talk like TV channels I don’t watch.”

“Precious” trailer

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