The Blind Side

The Blind Side is based on the true story of Michael Oher’s (Quinton Aaron) life and also on the book, “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game” by Michael Lewis. It’s a touching film about how Oher’s life is changed and the impact he has on Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock) and the rest of her family. Leigh Anne is a hardworking interior decorator who lives in her Memphis McMansion with her loving husband and two children. When Leigh Anne sees Oher walking home alone on a rainy night she invites him to stay with them.

Sandra Bullock does an outstanding job playing the tough loving Leigh Anne. After a few days Leigh Anne sets up a room for Oher to stay in and she finds out that this is the first time he’s ever had a bed. She quickly ducks into her room to save face. It’s obvious that as much as she is doing for this boy, he is changing her too. One example of this is on Thanksgiving Day, Oher takes his food into the dining room as the rest of the family gathers round the television to watch football, Leigh Anne seeing this calls the family into to join Michael. In essence, Michael who has spent much of his life alone brings the family closer together. All of the family members undergo a change by the time he goes off to college. Leigh Anne’s daughter Collins at first doesn’t want to be seen in school with Michael, but later in the movie she leaves her friends to go study with him at the other table. The father (Tim McGraw) signed off as an emergency contact on the school forms. And their son, SJ, is almost like Oher’s personal trainer. SJ get’s him working out so when he joins the football team he’ll be in shape. He helps to teach him the game and more importantly, SJ is filming Oher’s playing all the time. SJ creates a DVD of Oher’s superb playing and sends it to the big colleges around that area, which is how Oher gets his scholarship. SJ is probably my favorite character in this movie. He sort of steals the stage. He is an incredibly funny kid with huge love for attention.

Quinton Aaron, who plays Oher, may not have many lines in this movie but it doesn’t seem to matter. His facial expressions are more meaningful then any words. When he’s walking home alone and Leigh Anne stops him, the sadness in his eyes is excruciatingly real. He was able to make the audience believe what they were seeing. It takes real talent to make these fake feelings come through that well and seem so genuine. The lines that he does have are well chosen. For instance, when the family is thinking of becoming his legal guardians and they ask Oher if he wants to be a part of this family he simply replies: “I thought I already was.” The movie is full of great lines like that, and it helps to keep it light and funny. Oher is a gentle giant whose main goal is to protect his family at all costs. This really holds true when Oher gets in a crash with SJ sitting in the passenger seat next to him. Oher puts his arm in front of SJ’s little body and saved him from the air bag. This was a very intense scene and it shows how strong his instincts really are.

The scene that stuck with me and still bothers me is when Leigh Anne is having her 18$ salad with her haughty girlfriends and she tells them about how she’s thinking of adopting Oher. Their reactions are shameful. One of the ladies asked, “Aren’t you worried about Collins, having a black boy living in your house?” (not exact quote). Leigh Anne is appalled at their thoughts on her becoming the legal guardian of this boy. It unfortunately didn’t surprise me much, especially with it taking place in the south. I’m glad this scene was in the movie though because it shows how big of a problem racism still is. On the flip side though, when Oher goes back to where he used to live, one of the first questions he is asked is if he had “gotten some mother/daughter action”. Oher get’s extremely angry at that comment and a fight breaks out. They were both powerful scenes and even though Michael’s old neighbors and Leigh Anne’s circle of socialites are polar opposites, their prejudices are surprisingly similar.

The end of this movie is a little bittersweet. It’s great because Oher goes off to college and eventually goes to play for the NFL. Then a newspaper article flashes on the screen that talks about the death of an athletic African American teenager who lived in the same neighborhood as Oher did. That man could have just as easily been Oher if Leigh Anne hadn’t picked him up that night. It’s truly amazing how one event can cause a domino effect and change the outcome of a young person’s life.