Bullock Makes Her Mark as a Steel-Willed Memphis Belle in an Emotionally Driven Football Drama

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2009)

This empathetic 2009 sports-oriented drama is what professional critics would call an uplift film, unabashed in pulling all the necessary emotional cords with an undemanding audience. Screenwriter/director John Lee Hancock is no stranger to the genre since his last two films reflected similar against-all-odds story lines, the Texan band of brothers in "The Alamo" and the over-the-hill pitcher in "The Rookie". However, there are two key factors that transcend the potentially manipulative structure of Hancock's adaptation of Michael Lewis' intriguing 2006 fact-based book about the evolution of the left tackle in pro football. The first is the irresistible pull of the true-life story of six-foot-six, 345-pound Michael Oher, plucked out of destitution in the Memphis projects by a well-to-do white family to become the starting left tackle at Ole Miss and now with the Baltimore Ravens. The second is Sandra Bullock, bleached blonde, immensely likable, and heavily into no-bull "Erin Brockovich" terrain, in a solid performance as Leigh Ann Touhy, the feisty decorator wife and mother who takes Oher into her family home.
The film begins when the coach of a private religious school sees the otherwise lumbering Michael display natural athletic ability on the basketball court. The coach sees untapped potential in Michael as a football player because of his huge size, so much so that he gets accepted despite his poor academic record. It also turns out that the taciturn Michael, referred to by everyone as "Big Mike", is homeless, sleeping wherever he can since the state took him away as a child from his crack-addicted mother. The upscale Touhys have noticed him before since he goes to school with their children, S.J. and Collins, but it isn't until they see Michael wandering in the freezing cold that Leigh Anne impulsively takes him in. Despite some initial hesitation, he quickly becomes a part of the family, and his performance at school improves enough for him to show what he can do on the football field. Once Leigh Ann crystallizes the team-as-family metaphor for Michael, the 345-pound behemoth starts to realize his talent for smashing the defensive line. College football coaches from throughout the South come to the Touhy home to recruit Michael aggressively to play for them. Ole Miss is the Touhys' alma mater, which leads to an unexpected but inevitable dramatic turn.
It's not that Bullock does anything all that new in the movie. Rather, it's that she leverages her winning, every-person screen persona so very well within a character that would seem antithetical to her sensibilities as an actress. While it's true that the story probably puts too much emphasis on her character's role in Michael's ascent, Bullock is one of the few film stars today that can generate such an instant rapport with her audience, and she carries the emotional weight of the story with grit and dexterity. As Michael, Quinton Aaron has to be such an impassive presence at the beginning that when he starts to form into his own person, the actor brings a gentle, palpable force to his character's evolution. It's really the scenes between Bullock and Aaron that tug most at the heartstrings (I welled up at least three times during those shrewdly engineered moments). On the sidelines, country singer Tim McGraw plays supportive husband Sean credibly, and there are scene-stealing turns from towheaded Jae Head as the indefatigable S.J. and Kathy Bates in her usual gutsy-broad form as Michael's tutor, Miss Sue. Broadway actress Adriane Lenox - who originated the role of Mrs. Miller in "Doubt" - provides the film's most heartbreaking moments as Michael's haunted mother. This is far less a sports movie and more of a story of individual need and the power of family. The film is powerful in that respect.