Sandra Bullock is blonde, no I mean Leigh Anne Touhy is blonde. When you first see Bullock in this role as a blonde you think, that’s just not right but as the movie goes on she moves so flawlessly into the skin (and hair) of Leigh Anne you never see the transition. She is bold and sassy and I loved her. She manages to even make the gushiest bits of dialogue in writer-director John Lee Hancock’s script ring true.
Leigh Anne Touhy is a fervently-Christian housewife in Memphis, Tennessee, who enjoys a privileged life with her husband Sean (Tim McGraw) and children Lily (Lily Collins) and SJ (Jae Head). Driving home one night, Leigh Anne spots one of her daughters classmates, Michael Oher, wandering along the road and offers the homeless, black teenager a roof for the night. She takes pity on Michael and offers him a room and encourages the lad to improve his grades and chase the possibility of an American football scholarship.
A mama bear fighting to protect her cub has nothing on Leigh Anne Touhy. She’s a gun-toting, fearless woman who bucks convention to shelter, educate and love the homeless black teenager. This could have easily slid into melodrama, but instead is a charming, relatively unsentimental drama that focuses, in a straightforward manner, on how good deeds change lives at all levels.
Inspired by a true story, The Blind Side tugs every heartstring and ticks off every cliché including a moment over salads at the country club when one of Leigh Anne’s friends gushes, “You’re changing that boy’s life,” and she responds, with a choked up voice, “No, he’s changing mine.”
Michael has a bit of a hard time with his many blessings with the Tuohy family and his abusive past haunts him. He returns to the housing project where he grew up to try to track down his mother, running into trouble. Leigh Anne goes after him, not to drag him away from his mother but to help him in his search for a better life. She shows an amazing insight that carries Michael through this transition.
Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy does a surprisingly good job. You kind of keep expecting him to break out in a country ballad but he never does. Kathy Bates, stellar as always, makes the most of her role as the tutor who helps Michael to improve his grades to get into college.
All in all, there is a reason Sandra Bullock won Best Actress at the Oscars and the Golden Globes and The Blind Side was nominated for Best Picture. It’s not easy to take an unbelievable true story and make it completely believable.
Don’t miss this one. As always, I welcome your comments and invite you to my read my archived movie reviews at www.CarolynHastings.com.