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FAITH & FILM: Football biography Blind Side tackles faith, ethical dilemma Bill Fentum, Dec 18, 2009
WARNER BROS. PHOTO
Sandra Bullock plays Leigh Ann Tuohy in The Blind Side, a true story about a family taking in a wayward teenager (Quinton Aaron, left) and changing his life.
By Bill Fentum Staff Writer
The Blind Side Rated PG-13 for one scene involving brief violence, drug and sexual references
The Blind Side opens with a jolting image. In 1985 archival footage, we see New York Giants player Lawrence Taylor tackle a Washington Redskins quarterback, inadvertently fracturing the man’s leg and ending his NFL career.
All teams in the league learned a lesson that day: keep tackles around to guard a quarterback’s vulnerable “blind” side. Since then, good offensive linemen have been in demand for the job.
That’s where guys like Michael Oher come in. The 23-year-old African American signed a $13.8 million contract last spring with the Baltimore Ravens, telling reporters at the time that his life is “definitely blessed.” But it hasn’t always been easy, as depicted in this film.
In early scenes, the teenage Michael (Quinton Aaron) gets a break when the coach at a private Christian school in Memphis, Tenn., sees his raw athletic potential. He’s barely literate—fresh from classrooms where no one had really cared—but board members still admit him, based on the school’s motto that “with God all things are possible.”
At first, it doesn’t work out. Michael struggles in his classes, is abandoned by his crack-addicted mother and ends up homeless. For a while he survives by sleeping in the school gym each night, eating popcorn left over from basketball games.
Then he meets Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy (Tim McGraw and Sandra Bullock), fast-food millionaires whose daughter attends the school. The Tuohys take him in, become his legal guardians, and lift both his grades and his spirit.
They help him at football, too. Michael, a gentle giant, lacks drive in the game until Leigh Anne suggests he draw on his protective instincts to look after his teammates. Almost overnight he becomes the team’s star player, and feels even more at home with his new family.
Not surprisingly, they face prejudice from some others in the mostly white community. At least one game turns ugly, until Michael, taunted by the other team’s defensive lineman, blocks the guy all the way off the field and into the stands.
Audiences will cheer that moment, and fittingly so. The Blind Side may not be everyone’s idea of a perfect film—the emotional peaks feel a bit calculated to this reviewer—but it avoids most stereotypes and writer-director John Lee Hancock (The Rookie) clearly loves the central characters.
He also treats religion without condescension. When the Tuohys and Michael hold hands in prayer around their dinner table, the script doesn’t dwell on the scene or throw in a joke to defuse the mood. We simply see the role of faith in their lives, portrayed with no comment.
Mr. Aaron’s quiet performance balances nicely with Ms. Bullock’s outspoken Leigh Anne, a “steel magnolia” quick to respond to those in need but slow to reveal a softer side, even to those closest to her. In the supporting cast, Mr. McGraw is solid but bland, while Oscar-winner Kathy Bates adds a dose of humor and steals a few scenes as Michael’s tutor, “Miss Sue.”
All of them are surprised late in the story by a sticky dilemma: When college recruiters come calling, Leigh Anne and Sean, both University of Mississippi grads, push so loudly for Ole Miss that NCAA investigators take notice. Is it possible, they ask, that the Tuohys helped Michael not only out of love, but partly to nurture an athletic goldmine for their alma mater?
Whether viewers like the answer provided here or spend time debating the issue after the lights go up, may be insignificant. Let’s at least be glad that such questions are raised at all, turning The Blind Side into a sports film with more than winning on its mind.
WARNER BROS. PHOTO
Then he meets Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy (Tim McGraw and Sandra Bullock), fast-food millionaires whose daughter attends the school. The Tuohys take him in, become his legal guardians, and lift both his grades and his spirit. 
