Once in a while, a story comes along that is almost too uplifting to believe. Enter Michael Oher and his meteoric rise to success under the guardianship of Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy. The Blind Side, based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis, is a touching tale that does not merely tug at our heartstrings, but yanks with full force.
Bouncing from couch to couch, Oher (Quinton Aaron) is a homeless, gigantic high school student with a dramatic past. After some convincing from a football coach at the wealthy, predominately white Christian school Wingate, the board agrees to admit Oher into the school, where the Tuohys first take notice of him. Upon seeing him walking home in the rain in only a T-shirt and shorts, Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock) makes an impromptu decision to invite Oher to stay at the Tuohys home for the night - a decision that turns out to be permanent. With love and support from the Tuohys and patience and encouragement from his tutor Miss Sue (Kathy Bates), Oher graduates from Wingate with a much-improved GPA and a football scholarship at Ole Miss.
Though Oher's story is certainly a worthwhile investment of time, the real reason to see The Blind Side is Bullock's performance. As the affluent housewife with a heart of gold, Bullock's Leigh Anne is a winning combination of sassy and sweet. The film as a whole is probably not up to Oscar standards, but Bullock definitely has more than a fighting shot at snagging a nomination. Country superstar Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy delivers a surprisingly satisfying performance as Leigh Anne's trusting and dutiful husband. Quinton Aaron's role as Oher, however, is regrettably underdeveloped - the script lends him very few lines, and as a result, we rarely ever know what is going on in his head.
Despite his mistake of glossing over Oher's character, writer-director John Lee Hancock obviously knows how to sell a picture. There's no flashy camera angles here - just honest, by-the-book filmmaking that puts forward a story that audiences want to see. Add an adorable kid with perfectly timed one-liners in SJ Tuohy (Jae Head), alongside tear-jerking scenes, and you basically have a recipe for blockbuster success.
At the same time, The Blind Side is more than just a formulaic big-studio picture. Although most "based on a true story" films seem to focus on the gritty, dark or pessimistic, The Blind Side reminds us of the good side of life, and of the good side of other people. Perhaps the seemingly unending stream of tender moments can be a bit exhausting or even implausible, but at the end of the day, the audience is left feeling hopeful and sentimental. The Blind Side does not have enough of the heavy, message-charged conflicts to satiate the Oscar crowd, but the film has more than enough heart and just the right amount of spunk to win over all but the most cynical moviegoers.
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