The Blind Side (2009)

"The Blind Side" is one of those movies which made me indifferent most of the time. It was neither good nor bad, just a plain ordinary movie. There are many reasons that can justify its interest and success, especially to an american audience, its social and class misconceptions, its american football background, its rags to riches story, and some just all-american-jokes, but, as I said, little more depth exists. Actually the movie for me worked the other way around. I found the supposed "serious and real scenes" as full of cliches and stereotypes (and the classic "dilemma/misunderstanding scene" incredibly lame and textbook-screenplay, following all the rules of a first year screen-writing class), and the "comic/light scenes", "time passing/family scenes" much more real, and much more interesting. The story follows Michael (Quinton Aaron in the best performance of the picture), as a poor black boy from the slums, who has no place to sleep and only one set of clothes, who is, in a fortunate series of circumstances, accepted in a school that wishes to use him for his athletic skills. He sleeps secretly in the gym and does badly in school. One day Sandra Bullock, who is a rich catholic wife whose kids attend the same school, notices him and offers him shelter at her house. This is the beginning of a new life for Michael, who little by little integrates the family, starts to do well in school and in the football field, and soon gets noticed by the big universities. Meanwhile events happen that try to give the movie more scope and drama, a trip down memory lane to the wrong side of the tracks, a few failures before he achieves greatness (and his football techniques which strangely resemble Adam Sandler's in "The Waterboy"!!!), his official adoption by the family and the struggles of Bullock to make him succeed. This is based on a true story, so we know that he will eventually become an NFL player (a lot of NFL people make cameos), but this movie tries to show the human side of that rise. Director John Lee Hancock does his most personal work to date, and he handles the material with the proper touch. No one can, however, handle with the classic american cliches. Off course that all the friends of Bullock resent her adopting a black boy. Off course that all his friends from the "hood" are bad influences. Off course that in the first football game, of all the crowd, the camera films probably the only 2 people in that stadium who made a racist joke. Off course that the teachers and the students don't like him at first but then grow to like him. And off course that all the way Bullock is a saint, a knight in a shinning armor, without any doubt, and who gets away with anything. That aside (and forgetting the "dilemma" thing in which someone tries to convince him that the family just took him in to make him go play football at a certain College, which causes some misunderstandings etc etc... lame), the movie is very watchable and a good inspiring story. About Bullock's Oscar winning performance, well... we all know that the Oscar for Best Actress in recent years is an award for famous actresses reaching 40 years of age who need a recognition before ceasing to have major roles. Bullocks performance is very good when the screenplay shines, and she is allowed to be cocky and very amusing. In the rest is just a normal performance required by the role. She does not outgrow the material, and many actresses could have done that, and better. A fashion is a very unpredictable thing, and Bullock, in this role, was a fashion. Without any discredit to her performance, it didn't seem to me Oscar material. Although Quinton Aaron would loose (obviously) to Christoph Waltz in "Inglorious Basterds", it is a shame that he was not even nominated. Bullock won the statuette and he was not even nominated? It makes no sense! "The Blind Side" exists in a world of pre-conceived characters, and although based on a true story, is more of a fairytale, interesting to a point, but nothing more, and is inspiring because of the story in itself that we understand as the movie goes along, but not by any particular specific scene in the movie.