He’s got a pair of IFP Spirit Award nominations under his belt – and is guaranteed to be a player in the coming awards season.

But screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher knows that not everyone is enamored of “Precious,” the film whose screenplay he adapted from the novel “Push” by Sapphire. Even before it opened, he was steadying himself for criticisms of a film that was also winning some of the most glowing reviews of the year.

“It’s always healthy to be taken down a notch, even though it’s humbling,” he said over dinner recently. “For any film, it’s inevitable.”

That’s particularly true for a film about a young woman trying to rise from the squalor of her life in mid-1980s Harlem. Add in the fact that Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey have both lent their names to the project as presenters and the movie becomes a big fat target.

Armond White, critic for New York Press, took particular umbrage with the film and its depiction of a pregnant, illiterate, obese black teen named Precious: “Winfrey, Perry and (director Lee) Daniels make an unholy triumvirate,” he wrote. “They come together at some intersection of race exploitation and opportunism… Regardless of its narrative details about class and gender, ‘Precious’ is an orgy of prurience.”

Fletcher understands that response, as well as the one that says that, given so few opportunities to be represented in the mass media, African-Americans should avoid depicting the sordid side of their culture.

“I don’t think there’s enough breadth to the stories told about African-Americans,” said Fletcher, a New London, Ct., native. “If there were a greater variety of films and subject matter about African-Americans, then it would not be looked upon in the same way. I always looked at the story as oddly universal. From a distance, Precious and her world look very specific. But after a while, you see so many universal themes. You look at her as just an American character like Huck Finn or Celie in ‘The Color Purple.’”

Fletcher became involved in “Precious” after director Lee Daniels saw a short film that Daniels had written and directed and offered him the opportunity to adapt Sapphire’s novel. Though hardly a best-seller, the book had a feverish following in the black community – which might have daunted another writer.

“I’m embarrassed and grateful that I’d never heard of the book,” Fletcher admitted. “I’m so grateful because I would have been intimidated by its status. Instead, I was able to make the sort of leaps that I was. Ultimately the book had me under its spell. Once I was under that spell, any gigantic leaps seemed to fall in place as long as they were true to the spirit of the book and honored it.”

The story of a teen who escapes an abusive mother and learns self-esteem, “Precious” includes scenes of Precious being raped (and impregnated) by her own father. But those moments are only suggested in the film.

“The sexual stuff was much more explicit in the book,” Fletcher said. “Cinema is much more efficient in that way. You can show a glimpse and the audience can connect the dots. It was unlikely that I could put on the screen what the audience could imagine.”

Indeed, because of the harshness of Precious’ life, Fletcher incorporated fantasy sequences into the film at particularly tough moments.

“The idea of the fantasy sequences came from three places,” Fletcher said. “Characters who experience an ordeal need escape. The audience needed escape. And it was an organic way to bring in a cinematic element. Lee liked the idea. I had a number in specific places and he added more.”

Fletcher found himself enamored of his lead character “from word one. I loved the character. People who had read the book said it was depressing and it was hard, dense material. But I was in love with it and Precious. I fell in love with her. For me, the goal was to make it a cinematic experience while keeping its spirit alive. I’d taken extensive notes while reading it and juggling thoughts in my own unconscious about how to make it cinematic. By the time I was ready to write the script, I had a lot of things organized and they just needed to be executed.”

Fletcher already is in the process of assembling funds to direct a script of his own, in the hope that the success of “Precious” will cause enough of a ripple to start his own directing career. He’s pleased with the reviews and prospects for “Precious,” despite the minority of harsh critics who have attacked the film.

“Things that happen to Precious happen to women of all backgrounds,” he said. “When a woman from Utah comes up to me and tells me she’s Precious, that speaks to its universality. The film is a step toward finding self-love and redefining what beauty is. That’s another part of her journey.

“I think there’s an honesty in the film. Because it contains both truth and compassion, it makes it more difficult to take offense because truth and compassion are so compelling in general.”

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