The film's narrative is clearly introduced in the trailer and follows Todorov's theory of equilibrium. The state of balance is the character of Precious imagining how her perfect life would be  trying to get his life back together following his spell in a psychiatric institution. The introduction of Precious' real life creates the disequilibrium.The new equilibrium is not shown in the trailer - this is critical because if they add it they have put their movie into a 1-2 minute short clip and the people wouldn't feel the need to actually watch the movie.

The trailer is full of Barthes' enigma and action codes. These are designed to draw the audience in and encourage them to watch the whole film to resolve their questions. The major enigma codes the audience will consider revolve around whether Precious keeps her babies and drop out of school  and is this how Precious mother treats her all the time. However, there are other enigma codes such as what has happened in Precious maths class when she throws something at the boy for fighting the teacher. Although action codes are less important in the genre of Urban Drama there are still plenty of dramatic scenes such as Precious being thrown to the grounsd in the middle of the street . This suggests there will be moments of drama and tension in the film and the only way to see these resolved and in full is to watch the whole movie.