Product

RATING: ***

The story of Michael Oher should be celebrated. Perhaps little underlines it better than the man who plays him in The Blind Side. Quinton Aaron was working as a security guard at the time he auditioned for the role; he left behind his card with the casting team,offering to work as a guard on the set if he didn’t get it.

Sometimes,fortunes can turn. Oher’s did when he met the Tuohys of the good side of Memphis,or rather Leigh Tuohy (Bullock). And Aaron’s could with this film,with several nominations under his belt for playing Oher.

However,The Blind Side really isn’t as much a celebration of Oher’s life as it is of the Tuohys. Here are two rich White Republicans with two beautiful children,a nice Christian family with faith and money,plus a big home and bigger hearts,who find a place in it for a big Black man in redneck country. They have all and he has practically little but broken-Black home problems: drug-addled mother,dozens of siblings,a family separated into several foster homes,a father he didn’t know,two shirts,a pair of shorts and some torn shoes,and no stable home. Plus,he has never had a bed. Plus,he can’t read properly,or write,and barely makes the grades.

Bullock’s perfectly groomed Leigh crumbles under the extent of Michael’s misery. She is some kind of a designer herself,while her husband is a sort-of fast-food baron. That is not to say that Bullock doesn’t do a nice job with her portrayal of Leigh,or doesn’t deserve the two major acting awards she has already snapped up for them. In fact,in this too-predictable-by-half,too-White-and-wiped-clean film,she is the only one who at least seems like a real person — even if a really nice person. There are no off-keys in her considerably high-strung performance of a woman who’s always in control,while running a business and a household,or welcoming a perfect stranger into her home and onto her Christmas cards. So credible is Bullock that we never doubt Leigh’s good intentions. It’s quite something to have others believe in the genuineness of your little kindnesses,particularly against such a loaded background,but Bullock brings that to the screen.

It’s hard to say the same for the rest of the characters,be it her sadly sidelined husband (McGraw),her pretty sweet and amazingly accommodating teenage daughter,her irritating young son who seems to have overdosed on Macaulay Culkin,or even the docile Oher who’s putty in Leigh’s capable hands.

Interestingly,the real Oher — a pretty big name now in American football — apparently didn’t like the way he had been portrayed in the film as a simple,unskilled Black kid taken through his paces at every step by the Tuohys. In football terms,that is a hit from the blind side.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com