Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side thrilled me. All his books have. But the book is only partly a feel-good tale of a homeless black youth in Memphis being taken in by a Republican, rich white family and turned into a prospective American football star. Lewis also provides fascinating insights into the maths of football and its coaching, just as he did for baseball with Moneyball.
So when The Blind Side came out as a movie, one in particular starring Sandra Bullock, I groaned. Well, I can report that John Lee Hancock has written a decent script and directed a movie that engaged me and, dare I say it, moved me. Sandra Bullock’s performance, while hardly the stuff of an Academy Award, is creditable, and Quinton Aaron is splendid as the centrepiece youth. The real life story is interesting and wonderful enough to excuse the many Hollywood-style melodramatic devices. But without the other analytical side of Michael Lewis’s book, the film struck me as mawkish as soon I left the cinema.
Capable but ordinary. 2½ stars.