Remarkable acts of compassion can make all the difference. If that isn’t an overriding message of the movie The Blind Side (2009), then I was watching a different movie with the same name. John Lee Hancock and Michael Lewis take movie writing credit for the film, which in being based on the Lewis’ book The Blind Side. The sport of football is a language of this movie, with compassion being the message.
(From left, Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy, Ray McKinnon as Coach Cotton, and Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy in the movie The Blind Side).
The primary compassion of the movie began with Leigh Anne Tuohy, as portrayed by Sandra Bullock, who saw Michael Oher as a teenager walking down the street with nowhere to stay. Touhy convinced her husband, Sean Tuohy as played by Tim McGraw, to bring the young man into their home for a meal and a night of sleep. Oher would become a member of the family, go to school and college, and become a legitimate part of the Tuohy family.
(From left, Kathy Bates as Miss Sue and Quinton Aaron as Michael Oher in the movie The Blind Side).
Roy McKinnon as Coach Cotton needed some convincing to allow Oher, as played by Quinton Aaron, to join the high school football team. Having had a difficult beginning wherein his mother was exposed to crime and his father wasn’t in the picture, Oher could have easily fallen through the cracks of a system that could not provide the safety net that the child and man Oher was and would become could flourish. Kathy Bates as Miss Sue became a tutor. Collins Tuohy as portrayed by Lily Collins and S.J. Tuohy as portrayed by Jae Head became a sister and brother to Michael Oher in real senses of the term over time and through the course of the movie. The friction of acceptance, belief in decency, and an affirmative choice of compassion in the face of stereotypical fear were all forthrightly addressed with an affirmative outlook.
(From left, Lily Collins as Collins Tuohy and Jae Head as S.J. Tuohy in the movie The Blind Side).
Michael Oher grew to become the 23rd pick in the 2009 NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens. The movie offered a dramatic and comedic look into the journey of Oher, the Tuohy family, and the journey from homeless teen to more fuller, whole person. I rate The Blind Side at 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.
Matt – Saturday, July 18, 2020
Matt Lynn Digital 