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A review: The Blind Side
THE BLIND SIDE (12A) 2 hrs 9 minutes Stars: Sandra Bullock, Quinton Aaron Director: John Hancock Opens at the Belper Ritz on April 16
Appropriately, both of the recent Best Actor Oscar winners have swept the awards board this year for performances that have not so much enhanced as elevated their respective movies.
Without Jeff Bridges' grizzled charm, Crazy Heart would have had no beat. Likewise, Sandra Bullock's indomitable southern belle alone makes The Blind Side worth seeing.
I've always had a soft spot for Sandra but just wished her acting matched her choice of film projects. Ironically, the day before she clutched her golden Oscar, she gamely turned up to receive a Golden Raspberry or 'Razzie' for Worst Performance by an Actress in All About Steve.
The Blind Side is all about Sandra. She has long shown an aptitude for both comedic and dramatic roles and here combines the two as a smart, sassy, Christian mom Leigh Anne Tuohy who takes in a virtually homeless black teenager, a gentle giant known as 'Big Michael', wandering the dark streets.
Before long, Michael has become family and, eventually, a major American football star. Hollywood hokum, do I hear you say? It's certainly the stuff of Hollywood, not least because it's all true.
The reality would surely have been grittier and less feelgood than presented in this slick, smooth entertainment. Nonetheless, this is still an uplifting and fairly moving picture, not least for the heartwarming progress made by Michael as a result of the simple, charitable kindness of the Tuohy family, driven largely by Leigh Anne's feisty, determined and generous spirit, so convincingly conveyed by Bullock.
'You've changed his life', remarks one of Leigh Anne's ladies-who-lunch. 'No, he's changed mine', she replies.
There are other splendid performances here: Quinton Aaron has only a smattering of lines but cuts a dignified and endearing presence; country singer Tim McGraw is Leigh Anne's sympathetic husband; Kathy Bates breezes in for a sparky cameo as Michael's tutor; and there's heartfelt pathos in the brief lines delivered by Adriane Lenox as Michael's crack-addicted mother.
Young Jae Head rather overdoes the precociousness of Leigh Anne's son, and you may share my blind spot for American football – why is Big Michael regarded with awe when he's nothing more than a battering ram who never even touches the ball, never mind run with it? – but overall director John Hancock has succeeded in crafting a compelling story without overdue sentimentality and sensationalism, and he deserves further plaudits if he had a hand in coaxing out of his lead actress a career-best performance.
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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