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This time last year I doubt there was anyone proclaiming “next year Sandra Bullock will be an Academy Award winning actress”, other than her close family and her soon-to-be ex-husband that is. Thus with the British release of The Blind Side (a full six months after it’s American premiere) we are finally able to peruse her performance and see whether this critical comeback is well deserved.
As a film goes The Blind Side is classic Oscar-fodder following the time-honoured formula of a heart-warming biopic depicting the overcoming of some form of adversity with a happy ending where everyone learns a lesson about one thing or another. Excuse the cynicism but after a while, when you are able to predict when the clarinet and/or strings are about to come in and help accentuate the emotionality of a performance, you need to take a break from watching Oscar-season films so caught up in being seen as ‘worthy’ and stick something on along the lines of Aliens to exorcise those demonic strings of emphatic resonance from working memory.
The general plot of sorts is that rich white middle-class couple Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy (Tim McGraw and Sandra Bullock) take in the underprivileged, and very tall, Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) an African-American boy who has been bouncing around the foster care system for the best part of two decades. Over the course of the film this family unit, further tightened by his eventual adoption, aids Michael through school and his eventual foray into college American football.
From all of this it would be expected that a film which makes such a blatant attempt to pluck at the moviegoers collective heartstrings would end up feel trite and saccharin. However, in the case of The Blind Side this actually works as an enjoyably gripping film which is entirely due to the powerhouse performance from Sandra Bullock. Over the course of the two hour film you find yourself taken in by this true story and grow to care about the central characters that are all well played, with credit also due to Quinton Aaron whose performance walks a character who is loveable but not so much so that you secretly hope that he fails.
This is highly unusual for a film that is so clearly a sports film (unlike Wimbledon which is just a romantic comedy) since anyone ignorant about the rules said sport can feel left behind. So to The Blind Side’s credit there is enough of an explanation of American Football to keep us novices knowledgeable of why people are getting pummelled to the floor whilst fans are able to enjoy a movie version of their favourite sport.
The one main criticism, as mentioned before, is that this is a film that you can set your watch to. There are also some lines and plot points that are so cringingly bad that they are worthy of a Shakespearean thigh-slap laugh. Then you realise that this is an adaptation of true life events as depicted in the Leigh Anna Tuohy’s book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game and these kitschy/formulaic moments actually happened so a lot can be forgiven.
As a whole though The Blind Side is a very enjoyable film that has been perfectly sculpted with Sandra Bullock as its centrepiece, yes it is straightforward and yes it is obvious what is going to happen. But after a while you cease to care and happily go along with this yarn later remarking to friends that beyond all expectations you actually thought it was good.
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