The Blind Side
wogma rating: Beg or borrow, but do watch (?)
The Blind Side is a real-life story about finding love and family. Michael Oher is a 17-year-old black boy brought up in foster care all his life before he finds home at the Tuohys. With amazingly touching performances from Sandra Bullock and Quinton Aaron, this film is bound to make you cry.
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The Blind Side is a real-life drama about Michael Oher, a football player and his struggles from being an abandoned kid growing up in foster homes to an NFL player. Starring Quinton Aaron as Oher and Sanra Bullock as his adoptive mother, the film has been nominated for Oscars in the Best Actress and the Best Film category.
What makes The Blind Side such a compelling movie is the fact that it tells a true-life story of a boy with little or no prospects. The Blind Side however, is not just another underdog movie. It is a film about human relationships, the need to reach out to the ones less fortunate, but most importantly, it's a film about believing in oneself and following one’s convictions even when the whole world might be booing you.
The fact that the film is a real-life story makes it an even more compelling narrative. During its two-hour run, the screenplay of The Blind Side shows no signs of flagging; nor does it get into unnecessary details even when there are at least a quarter dozen stories that are dying to be told. Instead, writer-director John Lee Hancock chooses to focus on one and one story only -- that of Michael Oher. Everyone else’s personal tales fade out in comparison.
Sandra Bullock who plays Leigh Anne Tuohy surely does a great job. But if there is someone who the Academy has left out it is Quinton Aaron, the six-feet something huge actor who has played the role of the underdog with such conviction your heart goes out to him.
In the first part of the movie you see him with just a polythene bag -- the kinds you use for buying fish -- and set of clothes on his back spending nights at the Laundromat or the gym simply ‘because it’s warm in there’. Believe me there is nothing more heart-wrenching than those scenes.
Last year the Academy took note of a somewhat unknown actor Richard Jenkins and his role in a little-known film called The Visitor and nominated him in the Best Actor category alongside Sean Penn and Brad Pitt. Looking at this year’s nomination list you wonder why Aaron never made it to any of the categories.
We all know what a wonderful actress Sandra Bullock is -- she’s given us very many memorable films over the years. But if you must watch The Blind Side, watch it for the performance of Quinton Aaron.
This review is by guest reviewer Sanjeev Kumar Singh. Sanjeev Kumar Singh watches films by day and sings songs in the night. During his spare time he tells everyone willing to listen how he could not have asked for a better name.
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This page has additional observations, other than the ones noted in the main review.
What did not
- Bullock’s evident nose-job
- The side stories -- like those of the Tuhoys’ marriage perhaps -- are left untold
- Aaron could have got more screen time.
Parental Guidance:
- Violence: none
- Language: clean
- Nudity & Sexual content: none
- Concept: a real-life sports drama about a black boy finding his feet
- General Look and Feel: real
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