When a globe-trotting, workaholic father trying to visit his daughter on a last minute layover in Los Angeles discovers that she’s disappeared, he forces her awkward, nervous ex-boyfriend, still nursing a broken heart, to help him find her over the course of one increasingly crazy night.
Set in Harlem in 1987, Claireece “Precious” Jones is a 16-year-old African American girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother, an angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is chaotic and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and a secret–she can’t read.