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Entertainment Weekly: Dave Karger: Best Supporting Actress, Mariah Carey: Once people get past the strange concept of Carey as an Oscar contender, they won't be able to deny the power of her few scenes as a social worker. If you ask me, she more than deserves to be in this race.

New York Magazine: The most offbeat touch is a social worker played by Mariah Carey. She's a tad too goody-goody, but her toasty, caressing voice is a gift beside Sidibe's mush-mouthed monosyllables.

Salon: And Mariah Carey, in a superb, tough little performance, plays a welfare worker, Mrs. Weiss, who tugs like a terrier to get Precious to open up. Carey's approach to the character is both hard-nosed and delicate: She understands the idea of intimidation as an act of kindness.

Entertainment Weekly Peter Travers: "Other shocking things about this - Mariah Carey, totally de-glammed playing the social worker for Precious, who is amazing! How did she do this? That whole Glitter fiasco, she can act now."

New Yorker: Sitting opposite during this tempest is a social worker, Mrs. Weiss (Mariah Carey). Hold on: a stern, song-free, compassionate piece of acting from Mariah Carey? That sounds like one of Precious's fantasies, but it's for real.

Slate: All the Each One Teach One girls are deftly sketched and well-cast, as is an exasperated social worker played with surprising finesse by Mariah Carey.

Roger Ebert: Sidibe is heartbreaking as Precious, that poor girl. Three other actresses perform so powerfully in the film that academy voters will be hard-pressed to choose among them. Audiences may be hard-pressed to recognize them. The comedian Mo'Nique plays Mary, Precious' chain-smoking couch potato of a mother, treating her daughter like a domestic servant and turning a blind eye on years of abuse. Paula Patton is Ms. Rain, Precious' teacher, who is able to see through the girl's sullen withdrawal and her vulgarities, and wonder what pain it may be masking. Mariah Carey is Ms. Weiss, a social worker.

Moviefone: You may have heard that it's the film in which a nearly unrecognizable Mariah Carey (playing a social worker) finally earns some respect as an actress.

Associated Press: The makers of "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," who assembled some of the unlikeliest ingredients - Mariah Carey, Mo'Nique, and a lead actress plucked from an anonymous casting call - to create a wondrous work of art. Carey delivers warmly and honestly in a small role as a social worker, a surprising turnaround from her laughable musical bomb "Glitter."

Entertainment Weekly: Rating: A. Precious comes to the attention of a welfare counselor, played by Mariah Carey with an authentically deglammed compassion, and once she's in the class, she starts to wake up.

TIME: But that's only the second or third chapter in a story whose brutal revelations come at regular intervals. A riveting scene near the end of the movie - with Mary, Precious and a social worker played by a makeup-free Mariah Carey (who should work for Daniels every chance she gets) - is as powerful as anything on film this year.

New York Daily News: Rating: 4/5 stars. So why is everyone talking about this movie? Well, it doesn't hurt to have Oprah and Tyler Perry, both executive producers, on your side. But the film's real strength is its cast, from an Oscar-bound Mo'Nique to a notably deglammed Mariah Carey (as an overwhelmed social worker). The actress who most deserves credit, however, is the one we don't already know: first-timer Sidibe. She provides the faintly beating heart of this movie, muted enough to overlook but strong enough to keep everything going.

Chicago Tribune: Rating: 3½ stars. And Mariah Carey -- who knew the pop diva had such a good, honest, clean performance in her? She plays a social worker, and in a couple of lengthy interactions, Carey and Sidibe find common performance ground where you wouldn't think any existed.

Star-Ledger NJ: Actually, the smaller but ultimately more startling surprise here is Mariah Carey, stripped of makeup and playing a Jewish social worker with an accent that could stop Fran Drescher in her tracks. If Carey ever wants to jump to the glamorous world of indie film, it's waiting.

USA Today: Precious begins learning to read and write, thanks to the dedication of her teacher Blu Rain (Paula Patton). A compassionate social worker (Mariah Carey in a startlingly subtle performance) helps Precious gain strength.

Metromix: Her breakthrough performance is just one of the movie's many believe-it-when-you-see-it selling points.

Los Angeles Times: Most of the characters are a study in restraint. Mariah Carey, sans makeup and minis, is almost unrecognizable and a pleasant surprise as the tough New York social worker who eventually gets Precious' case.

Backstage: Among the fine supporting cast, Patton is warm and stern as the kind teacher who takes Precious under her wing and encourages her to fly. Mariah Carey completely erases the memory of "Glitter" and is quite effective as a no-nonsense social worker, while Lenny Kravitz and Sherri Shepherd are fine in their brief roles.

Rolling Stone: Rating: 3½ / 4 stars. The Precious support system consists of Nurse John (an excellent Lenny Kravitz) and Ms. Weiss (the de-glittered Mariah Carey is a revelation), a social worker who knows the roots of Precious' problems.

FilmCritic: Aided by a social worker (an unrecognizable and shockingly strong Mariah Carey), Precious begins a slow, rough detachment from her life with Mary.

MSNBC: Ultimately, though, it's really about the intensity of Sibide and Mo'Nique, although supporting players Patton and an unrecognizable Mariah Carey (her powerful performance as a social worker officially absolves her for "Glitter") certainly have an impact as well. Make whatever hay you want out of what this film does or doesn't say about the black experience or living in poverty or the cycle of familial abuse, but there's no denying the searing performances that Daniels has elicited from his fine cast.

New York Post: Rating: 3½ / 4 stars. Daniels even manages to draw a highly effective performance out of a severely de-glamorized Mariah Carey (complete with faint mustache) as a sympathetic but tough social worker who has to referee a climactic showdown between the newly empowered Precious and Mary.

MTV: The picture is filled with other vivid performances, especially by Xosha Roquemore as the ghetto-fabulous classmate Jo Ann ("My favorite color is fluorescent beige!"); by Mariah Carey as a social worker (a small part, but Carey, a droopy brunette here, nails it); and by Lenny Kravitz, who's almost unrecognizable at first as a sweet-natured male nurse in the hospital where Precious gives birth to her second child. Carey and Patton are equal with Sidibe in screen impact; the film holds the girl in the center of their attempt to save her future. Why would a teacher and a social worker go to such lengths to intervene? They must see tragic victims of abuse every day.