Worked for me

Rating: 7/10 (1 March 2010)

I saw "The blind side" last Saturday. I guess you already know the plot: black boy with problems and no home is hosted in a white rich family house, where is going to stay and change his life forever. It's the typical story of "fall and redemption". If we talk about cinematographic features, it's cheesy. The movie is full of clichés: Michale Oher (the black boy) is extremely, extremely nice, even having had a terrible life. He has no sequels. The Tuohyes are all mature and grown up people, even the teenage daughter Collins has no problems with the fact of living with a big black boy in the same house without having any complain about what her friends would say. The son S.J., starts starts referring to Oher as his "brother" whit no spark of jealous. Mamma is always armed, and has no fear of getting in the ghetto to look for his boy. So, we are in presence of the celebration of perfect life but we do know, that life is far away from being perfect. Seems too much, even for Hollywood. But...there is always a but. For some reasons, the movie worked for me. Maybe because when I saw Quinton Aaron's smiling I believed him. Made me believe that was a guardian of his family, I found him refreshing and credible. And when he was frowning, he was showing the world the pain in his heart. Aaron composed a character that you can love and embrace as a son or as a brother. And then there is Sandra Bullock. I must say that in my opinion, his career is comprised of both good and bad performances. But she knows what she has. Bullock, who portrays Leigh Anne Tuohy, is shown in the film extremely stylish. But she also composes a character with strong determination to make difficult decisions. She may make those decisions too easily, but the director balanced that simplification with great close-up shots of Bullock's beautiful expressions. She knows how to do it. And then finally, there is the dedication of Leigh Anne Tuohy as a mother. You can not help but stifle a sob when Oher call "mama" for the first time to Bullock in the movie. It's the universal theme: the call of motherhood, the relation between a son and his mother, even when one is black, and the other is white.
The whole thing is around Leigh Anne and Oher. And that's it. The other actors are only good details in the drama. And worked for me. For no reasons, and for all reasons. Maybe because we love thinking that, at least in the movies, life is perfect.