LEIGH ANNE TELLS 'BIG MIKE' HOW TO PLAY FOOTBALL

Sometimes you just can't win

The Blind Side is a feel-good movie about a rich white Nashville, Tennessee family (the husband is a former athletic star and restaurant magnate, the wife an interior decorator with posh city contacts) that rescues a poor orphaned black boy and nurtures him into becoming a great football player. Based on a book by Michael Lewis, the story is substantially true: Michael Oher is a real person who had a crack addict mom and no dad, went through a series of foster homes, had a miserable young life and lousy school record. When the Twohy family took him up, he had gotten into a fancy school after its football coach saw his athletic potential and got him admitted. It's not just for his athletic potential that the boy should be admitted, the coach (Ray McKinnon) argues in the movie; it's just the good thing to do. The Blind Side talks a lot about the good thing to do. The family and a friendly teacher saw he wasn't dumb, and he gradually improved his initially terrible grades and academic performance so he could play.

The real life Michael Oher lived more or less this experience, got good grades after being tutored, went to the University of Mississippi. The NCAA was indeed suspicious, as in the movie, of Michael's choice of Ole Miss, since both his adoptive parents and his tutor were graduates and huge supporters of its football team. That was forgiven and he had a stunning college athletic career paved with trophies and recently got a five-year, $13.8 million contract to play for the Baltimore Ravens.

The movie is about the miraculous blooming of a humble ghetto boy who learned to repress bad experiences and instead of being angry, is protective -- so he eventually becomes great at playing defense. As "Big Mike" actor Quinton Aaron is so quiet and recessive even S.J. (Jae Head), the pint-sized, hyper-active "brother" in his white adoptive family, runs circles around him as a personality. But the dominant figure is Sandra Bullock as the wife, Leigh Anne Tuohy. Bullock gives a suave performance: she's a walking cliché yet manages to be quite winning. Leigh Anne not only initiates the adoption when the family observes "Big Mike" walking along the road from the school in the rain on a cold day with nothing but a shirt on. She even steps onto the football field later to coach the coach, telling him how to marshal the youth's formidable defensive skills.

When you think about it, the method is little different from training a mute animal, and until Michael becomes a success and settles comfortably into the Tuohy family late in the movie, he is almost mute, speaking up only in gestures and a composition found in a classroom. He's useless when encouraged to be aggressive on the field because he has no aggressive instincts. Leigh Anne coaches him to think of his team as his family and act in the plays to protect them, rather than attack their opponents. This somehow works. And with his formidable height, weight, muscle and coordination, this one pattern makes him a great player. The coach's only job is to see the instinct is properly directed and follows the rules of play. Michael has to learn he can't pick up an opponent and carry him down the field.

Critics are much less pleased by this film than Hancock's previous sports drama, The Rookie, another true story from a book, that one about a baseball player who overcomes initial disappointment to become a pro. Dennis Quaid plays the athlete in The Rookie, and the focus is on him and on the game.

The idea of a saintly white woman who saves a po' black boy sticks in the craw of many, whether it's true or not. Melissa Anderson of the Village Voice, who was added to the New York Film Festival jury that chose Lee Daniels' explosive and lurid Precious last year, complained in her review that "unlike the howling rage of Claireece Precious Jones, Michael. . .is mute, docile, and ever-grateful to the white folks who took him in. . .Blind Side the movie peddles the most insidious kind of racism, one in which whiteys are virtuous saviors, coming to the rescue of African-Americans who become superfluous in narratives that are supposed to be about them." It's hard to deny that Precious the movie certainly focuses in much more detail on Clareece's grim, abusive ghetto existence. It plunges us into that world and rubs our noses in it. Precious is vivid. The Blind Side tells its story conventionally, taking few chances. But Precious is deeply flawed. It's melodramatic and lurid and omits any glimpse of positive aspects of Harlem life. But it's more memorable than The Blind Side.

I wonder if the real Michael Oher and his adoptive family would disagree strenuously about this movie -- and about his own story, for that matter. If his experiences turned him into a much celebrated pro footballer, how is an account of them "the most insidious kind of racism"? If the Touhy family made his success possible with their support, love, and money, are they not indeed "virtuous saviors"? What is the politically correct way of telling this story? Maybe sometimes life just isn't politically correct. John Lee Hancock has made a simplistic and rather bland movie. But though I haven't read the book, reports indicate the movie sticks close to it in essentials, and to the life.

The advantage of The Blind Side over Precious despite its risking charges of white condescension is that it provides a positive image of helping the disadvantaged in the face of peer disapproval. The Blind Side is about racism: the Tuohys face it from rednecks on the football field and from Leigh Anne's well-heeled lady friends, who chide her for including a giant black youth in the family's Christmas card photo. Or course this is nothing like the danger Michael faces when he returns to his mamma's neighborhood. A prominent black movie critic, Armond White, hates Precious. He calls it "the con job of the year," and says Daniels, Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, the powerful black media magnates, "come together at some intersection of race exploitation and opportunism." Precious is exploitive. The crime of The Blind Side is that it shows white people helping a black person. However, Leigh Anne tells her bitchy luncheon pals that she's not helping Michael, he's helping her. But that too will be be debunked: the white lady is doing good so she'll feel good. The Touhys had a wonderful time helping Michael Oher become an athletic star: shame on them! In this kind of subject, you just can't do the right thing. The (predominantly white) audience likes The Blind Side just fine. The Blind Side is in three times as many theaters as Precious, and has made five times as much money.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.