The Blind Side
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Directed By: John Lee Hancock
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, & Quinton Aaron
Leigh Anne Tuohy is the kind of person you wouldn't think could really exist if she didn't. She is commanding; deeply caring, but not in an overt way; controlling, but in a good way; and very funny. She is the kind of person who, I imagine, is very difficult to accurately play. There is the constant danger of becoming too over-the-top and losing the undeniable charm that the actual Leigh Anne Tuohy has. Because beneath her tough exterior, from all implications, she is a wonderful mother who is much more compassionate than she would like you to believe. There has been much discussion of whether or not Sandra Bullock really deserved the Oscar she won for this movie; some say that the Academy only rewarded her because of her long, beloved career and because this would probably be the only time she would ever be up for such an award (Miss Congeniality, as funny as it is, isn't really Oscar material). Hogwash, I say. If you have ever seen Leigh Anne Tuohy in an interview (YouTube has some, I'm sure), then you will see that Sandra Bullock so effortlessly slips into the role, capturing all of the complexities of a woman who is so outlandish that she seems completely impossible. It's a challenging role that would have been easy to screw up, but Bullock nails it.
That being said, as a general rule, I hate football movies...no, "hate" does not accurately describe my feelings towards them. I loathe them with an intensity most critics direct only towards slasher flicks. Having grown up in a rural southern town (and still living there today), I have been surrounded by football my whole life, a curse for someone like me, who would much rather be listening to show tunes than watching a bunch of sweaty guys toss around a ball. Heck, around here, football is the only reason most people tolerate this little thing called "school." Without it, I'm sure my high school would've been shut down years ago...probably with uproarious applause. Because of that, I certainly don't want to waste my time watching movies about the sport. So, needless to say, I didn't really care about watching The Blind Side and only did so because I like Sandra Bullock and, well, because it got nominated for "Best Picture" at the Oscars...a nomination that shocked me. Hey, maybe this would be the one football movie that could change my mind, that could win me over to the dark side, that could make me...gasp, actually appreciate the dreaded "sports genre." Well, it isn't...but that's because this movie is rarely about football. It's about family, not just in the traditional sense of the word...and that, my friends, is a subject I like a lot.
We live in a time when we cannot allow ourselves to be restrained by some close-minded definition of "family." Traditionally, one must consist of a father, a mother, and however many biological children they have (any number, by the way, other than 2 or 3 is quite suspicious). This is such a silly and offensive viewpoint. It is just as absurd to say that a child must come from a woman's vagina - or that, at the very least, the child must have been adopted prior to the umbilical chord falling off - in order to be considered her son or daughter. Michael Oher (played here by Quinton Aaron) is Leigh Anne's son. He may have been seventeen when she and her family, including her husband (played here by Tim McGraw), took him in...but he is still a member of the family, just as much as her biological children are. You see, they pick him up off the streets, give him his very first bed, feed him, buy him a truck, and pay for his college tuition...but, most importantly, they give him a family to belong to. They give him a network of people who will love and care for him, no matter what. In the end, that makes a family. It has nothing to do with some insipid and close-minded box our society has placed it in...it is about love. Thankfully, The Blind Side, using football to lure in the traditionalists, speaks that message beautifully to those who need it.
To be fair, though, I still didn't like the football elements of The Blind Side. They are made even worse by the real Michael Oher's assertion that they were completely fabricated and that he knew how to play football well before joining the Tuohy family. I felt then that The Blind Side had, in some small way, played it safe. People are more willing to see a sports movie than they are a movie about an affluent white family taking in a black teen...so The Blind Side needlessly included such scenes to draw in bigger audiences. Obviously, as I mentioned above, I can understand using football to bring in people who need to hear the message of the movie and to make it more accessible to them...but football played a part in Michael Oher's life in reality, thus negating the need to fabricate more scenes just to emphasize it. How about just telling the story like it happened, including the family elements and the football elements exactly as they occurred? Trust me, Michael Oher's story is compelling enough without any inclusions from Hollywood screenwriters. But, the movie still wisely focuses on the family for the bulk of its duration, a family that I grew to care about and admire, thus overshadowing most of the problems I had with the football stuff. I think most people will like this movie like I did. It's well-acted, well-made, consistently entertaining, very touching and sentimental...all without being too cheesy. I don't think it's "Best Picture" material necessarily, but I do think that Sandra Bullock's performance was very deservant of that Oscar. And yes, for those of you who are wondering, I still really loathe football movies...just not this one.
That being said, as a general rule, I hate football movies...no, "hate" does not accurately describe my feelings towards them. I loathe them with an intensity most critics direct only towards slasher flicks. Having grown up in a rural southern town (and still living there today), I have been surrounded by football my whole life, a curse for someone like me, who would much rather be listening to show tunes than watching a bunch of sweaty guys toss around a ball. Heck, around here, football is the only reason most people tolerate this little thing called "school." Without it, I'm sure my high school would've been shut down years ago...probably with uproarious applause. Because of that, I certainly don't want to waste my time watching movies about the sport. So, needless to say, I didn't really care about watching The Blind Side and only did so because I like Sandra Bullock and, well, because it got nominated for "Best Picture" at the Oscars...a nomination that shocked me. Hey, maybe this would be the one football movie that could change my mind, that could win me over to the dark side, that could make me...gasp, actually appreciate the dreaded "sports genre." Well, it isn't...but that's because this movie is rarely about football. It's about family, not just in the traditional sense of the word...and that, my friends, is a subject I like a lot.
We live in a time when we cannot allow ourselves to be restrained by some close-minded definition of "family." Traditionally, one must consist of a father, a mother, and however many biological children they have (any number, by the way, other than 2 or 3 is quite suspicious). This is such a silly and offensive viewpoint. It is just as absurd to say that a child must come from a woman's vagina - or that, at the very least, the child must have been adopted prior to the umbilical chord falling off - in order to be considered her son or daughter. Michael Oher (played here by Quinton Aaron) is Leigh Anne's son. He may have been seventeen when she and her family, including her husband (played here by Tim McGraw), took him in...but he is still a member of the family, just as much as her biological children are. You see, they pick him up off the streets, give him his very first bed, feed him, buy him a truck, and pay for his college tuition...but, most importantly, they give him a family to belong to. They give him a network of people who will love and care for him, no matter what. In the end, that makes a family. It has nothing to do with some insipid and close-minded box our society has placed it in...it is about love. Thankfully, The Blind Side, using football to lure in the traditionalists, speaks that message beautifully to those who need it.
To be fair, though, I still didn't like the football elements of The Blind Side. They are made even worse by the real Michael Oher's assertion that they were completely fabricated and that he knew how to play football well before joining the Tuohy family. I felt then that The Blind Side had, in some small way, played it safe. People are more willing to see a sports movie than they are a movie about an affluent white family taking in a black teen...so The Blind Side needlessly included such scenes to draw in bigger audiences. Obviously, as I mentioned above, I can understand using football to bring in people who need to hear the message of the movie and to make it more accessible to them...but football played a part in Michael Oher's life in reality, thus negating the need to fabricate more scenes just to emphasize it. How about just telling the story like it happened, including the family elements and the football elements exactly as they occurred? Trust me, Michael Oher's story is compelling enough without any inclusions from Hollywood screenwriters. But, the movie still wisely focuses on the family for the bulk of its duration, a family that I grew to care about and admire, thus overshadowing most of the problems I had with the football stuff. I think most people will like this movie like I did. It's well-acted, well-made, consistently entertaining, very touching and sentimental...all without being too cheesy. I don't think it's "Best Picture" material necessarily, but I do think that Sandra Bullock's performance was very deservant of that Oscar. And yes, for those of you who are wondering, I still really loathe football movies...just not this one.
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