Review - The Blind Side

Conservatives Have Feelings Too

The Blind Side

Score: 8,5


I knew it! I knew that deep down inside that human being, there was an actress. I think that’s the first time I see Sandra Bullock doing and interesting movie. Ok, I’m lying, but that’s the first defying role she’s done, when she had to become someone completely different from what she actually is. She’s done something similar in Miss Congeniality, but that’s a serious movie. It is written and directed by John Lee Hancock.

It is an adaptation of a book, as usual in Hollywood. The book is about the evolution of one position from that civilized, elegant and friendly game called football in the US, where they use a few more protections, and rugby in the rest of the world. The other part of the book is about the tearful story of Michael Oher, one of the greatest athletes to act in this position (maybe the best one, but once I don’t know anything about US football it would be risky for me to point that out).

Michael had a tough childhood, raised by a drug addict mother, but she lost the guard to the State, in Tennessee, in the South of the US, where most of the people is Republican and religious, and social inclusion is something really important… He is admitted in a rich people’s school because of his athletic potential but hi grades are not good at all, so he can’t take part in the teams. On a Thanksgiving holiday a rich family sees him walking by himself in the cold and takes him home.

The rich family is composed by Sandra Bullock, blonde, flamboyant and imperious, Tim McGraw, the country singer, the teenage daughter, played by Phil Collins’s daughter, Lily Collins and the younger son, who is quite a character. The conservative good Christians take him home for one night but he stays for more and more and he conquers the whole family, which adopts him after all and even hires a tutor, played by the always excellent Kathy Bates (who should have been better used in this picture and in Hollywood in general), to help him to improve his grades, get into the football team and get a college scholarship.

The whole film is totally cliché and the formula has been used thousands of times, but it’s a beautiful story and interesting to watch anyway. The whole cast is perfect, the main actor is very charismatic, Kathy is great, but Sandra is the one who steals the scene and she will be one of the front runners for the main awards in the upcoming award season. I think she has done too much cosmetic procedures in her face, which is always a problem for actresses because it makes them lose the facial expressions, but she found a prefect role. She was nominted to the Golden Globe, SAG and Critics’ Choice awards. Let’s see what happens.

Despite of the difficult story the script has very funny moments, like when Sandra complains about the laziness of the service in a public office asking who runs the place, and the attendant points to Bush’s poster on the wall. Or when Kathy is very concerned to say that she’s an atheist democrat in her job interview. The movie has this obligation to say that conservatives have feelings too. I don’t know, I never had much contact with them, but it’s something hard to believe… Right now, when the main Republican public figures are Sarah Palin and the ex-Miss California Carrie Prejean, a movie like this is a good way to show their good side too. But it’s a nice movie to watch after all.