Now Playing: The Blindside

Last week, The Blindside opened in theaters across the country heralding a superstar cast including Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, and Kathy Bates (among others). The movie was advertised as a feel-good movie about a young homeless boy who finds love and family in a white southern family. However, the movie is much more than that! The story is really about a young African-American boy, Michael Oher, who lived in the Memphis projects with his drug-addicted mother. At a young age, he was taken from his mother and placed in various foster families from which he always escaped. By coincidence, he was enrolled in a preppy, white, christian school where he was considered an outcast by both students and parents. At this time, Oher was homeless and found food by collecting alreayd eaten popcorn leftover after athletic games at the school. One day, Leigh Ann Tuney (Sandra Bullock) finds Michael walking down the street in the cold and welcomes him to sleep on her family's couch. Within months, Michael becomes part of the family and is accepted by Leigh Ann's husband, and two children. Of course there are difficulties that arise, but Michael is soon placed on the football team. With the help of a tutor (Kathy Bates), Michael becomes eligible to attend college.

The aspect that makes this feel-good movie more than just a stereotypical tearjerker is that it is a true story with as much pain as it has happiness. The first 45 minutes of the movie has the audience clutching their guts in hopes that the sorrow experienced by Michael will hopefully subside. Though his circumstances improve a great deal, the film never lets the audience forget Michael's past and therefore keeps it ever looming in the back of the audience's mind. The characters are real, and they should be, because they are based on real people.

Overall, it is the perfect holiday movie! It makes everyone want to jump up from their seats and give back to those less fortunate. I was not a fan of Sandra Bullock before this movie, but I now have to say that she did an excellent job. I often find tearjerker movies to be annoying and shallow, which this movie is neither. The autenticity of the story is further bolstered by the ending of the movie in which actual photographs of Michael Oher and the Tuney family are projected on the screen alongside the credits. There is even footage of Oher being drafted for the Ravens by the NFL in which Oher and the Tuney's are shown together. The sentiments and values that this film embodied touched my heart and I am sure that it did the same to the other viewers in the theater. It may even get me interested in football! (though...probably not)

-DLP