At first I wanted to see this just to see Mariah Carey, who supposedly gave a stellar performance, I wanted to see her all ugly-ed up for the role, but when I heard more about the story, it interested me, but also horrified me: A 16 year old girl who has a child with her father after he rapes her repeatedly, the child has Down Syndrome, she is suspended from school for getting pregnant again to her father and has an abusive mother, no friends and her only escape is some lunacy inducing imaginary world where she is a thin, white pop star. And wait, she has AIDS too! It sounds like a majorly depressing story, but also a fascinating psychological journey.

The reviews are mixed, while everyone says the actors are amazing and the performances are Oscar-worthy, the reviews on the storyline say it is very depressing, but with some hope. Some are concentrating on the fact that it stereotypes black people and the world that they live in, that "black" stories are only told in this ghetto-way, never in an uplifting way, especially since it's been nominated for Oscars, and not a lot of "black" films get nominated.

Has anyone seen it? Without spoiling it, how was it? I am definitely going to see this, and I imagine it requires a box of tissues at the ready, but I just wondered what people's thoughts on the story was? Depressing? Hopeful?

Man, that DOES sound depressing. That may be way too much for me to handle. I dunno, I think I have limits. I may give it a go. It may be very well done, but this kind of movie tend to leave me feeling cold inside.

Saw this yesterday, it was alright, but apart from the story being really depressing and it making you feel sorry for the people who go through this sort of thing in their lives, it's not very engaging. The acting was good, Mo'nique gave a good performance, as did the rest of the cast, but nothing that really made me go "wow". It did remind me how hot Lenny Kravitz is.

It just didn't really move me, and I thought it would, it was weird in places and uncomfortable and depressing, the reviews were saying that it left you with a sense of hope and I didn't feel that at all. A lot of the situations seemed forced and out of sync with the rest of the movie, it was kind of dis-jointed and that made it hard to really get into the characters and their lives.

PS: They couldn't find a black kid with Down's Syndrome to play her daughter?