Inspiring and inspired twice: Bullock, and Bullock's character. It's her movie.

Rating: 6/10 (27 February 2010)

The Blind Side (2009)
I managed to see this in the theater, and I think this always helps a movie through its so-so aspects. But it also magnified the really spot-on characterization of a tough, big-hearted, fast thinking southern cliché of a woman (a white woman in this case, Leigh Anne Tuohy) by Sandra Bullock. She has a compelling if not amazing support cast, appropriately maybe, for this is a kind of finely tuned television scenario, made to Hollywood standards (in the best sense). But I say this because it's true enough to help understand the feel of the film: mainstream, feelgood, well-paced, well-written. Beyond Bullock, the two boys stand out, the big Quinton Aaron and the diminutive Jae Head. And some actual football coaches show up for cameos. It's all pretty fun and at times funny and even at times tearjerky. Not bad for an everyday so-so movie.
The plot is the other lynchpin holding the movie up, but also holding it back. All the personal bravery (however clichéd it looks on the screen), and the crossing of class and race lines, make for good American fodder. I bought into it for two hours. In the long run, it shines light on two pillars of mainstream American society: sports and Christianity, and both glare a little in the light. A little. The big money that drives college sports (and taints it, we presume) and the hypocrisy of ordinary folk who espouse some Christian values and not others (an old theme) are given an honest but very shallow look.
There are scenes that are stretched thin, like the depictions of the projects and poor African-Americans bad mouthing Leigh Anne. But there are other scenes to balance this off that might be just as thin, but which are funny, as when Leigh Anne tells off some of her so-called friends at a restaurant. Low key, acerbic, and justified. Most of all, over and over, however improbable, Leigh Anne Tuohy "does the right thing." A curious (and probably painful) counterbalance to Spike Lee's idea of right.
The vibe in the movie review world is that this is a core values, conservative, even (slightly) evangelical film (at least compared to some of the competition). And that's unfair to conservatives, who can't be painted or tarred too easily, and to liberals, who have big hearts of their own now and then. That is: Leigh Anne is a paradigm of someone who is both supremely comfortable, her husband dripping in new wealth, and sharply moral. Her position is not simple. She not just someone who just does good (pulling a black homeless high schooler out of the street and into her white home). She does so with subtle, cunning, unflagging compassion. Yes, she is in a position to do that more easily than most, but she does do it. She is a role model.
And there are those out there who don't like to see role models come from the other side of the aisle, and so a left-leaning saint is a bleeding heart liberal and a conservative saint is a do-gooder. Shame on everyone. See this movie and flinch at its clichés if you want, but settle in to see one performance, by Bullock, that hits just the right notes. She was surprised at how well it has been received, so you may as well be, too.