The Blind Side - Tim

The Blind Side

With only one day to go before the Academy Award nominations are announced, it seemed appropriate to watch The Blind Side, for which Sandra Bullock has won this year's Golden Globe for Best Lead Actress. 2009 was Bullock's most successful year, from a box office point of view. She is also one of the most ambivalent actresses in Hollywood. One moment she stars in great films like Speed, A Time to Kill or Crash; the next moment she somehow ends up on the sets of movie mishaps such as Speed II, Premonition and, most recently, All About Steve, for which she received her second Golden Raspberry nomination.

In the case of The Blind Side, Bullock plays Leigh Anne Tuohy, a copybook Desperate Housewife: $18 salads with the girls from the country club in between driving the kids from school to football/cheer-leading practice and all the while looking amazing in white Capri pants. Into this supposedly perfect life stumbles Michael 'Big Mike' Oher, an underprivileged black kid from the poor part of whatever racist town in Tennessee they live in. 'Big Mike' truly deserves his name and turns out to be a pro-football player but he is also shy, insecure and has some learning disabilities. Leigh Anne decides to take him under her wing. If you have detected parallels to Precious I cannot blame you.

It is not necessary to elaborate any further on the plot as it is mind-numbingly predictable. And I mean the kind of predictability that enables you to mouth entire sentences before you hear them. Sandra Bullock, who is in just about every scene, delivers an alright performance - but by no means exceptional. It thus remains a mystery what she got that piece of gold for. Oh, I know, she put on a Southern drawl. Yep, always an award-guarantee, that funny talking, darn tootin'.

As a principle, I do not quit films before the end. Perhaps I hope that something at the end will suddenly make me appreciate a film that hitherto was a joke. As you would expect, this rarely is the case, although I must admit that it was worth sitting through the tedious last hour of The Mist to see the end. To put it mildly, I would not have put up a fight if someone had called me during The Blind Side with the prospect of meeting up at McDonalds Leicester Square to go scum-watching. As much as I like seeing Bullock in tight white pants: I got bored. Yes, even of Sandra Bullock's moneymaker!

Apart from the predictable plot and cheesy music, it was also the lack of originality that bothered me. Obviously the films is original to some extent because it is based on a true story, and as I found out later, follows it quite accurately. However, the theme of the underprivileged black kid is stale and much better implemented in Precious. For a film that wants to show us ambivalently how a superficial soccer turns philanthropist and a kid from the hood remain innocent, there is a lot of black/white painting. The teams 'Big Mike' plays against are always evil and their players racist. Overall it seems like everyone is racist, even teachers. Meanwhile the black kids in Michael's hood are - wouldn't you know it - jobless and crack-dealing Gs who want to 'tap' that foster mother of his. As Michael enters the scene, the lives of the Tuohys seem to revolve around nothing but him: How he needs to pass an exam, practice football and buy a proper shirt. Not once do we see them engage in an activity that has nothing to do with Michael, which makes the film lose credibility.

To leave on a good note, the interactions between Bullock and Quinton Aaron (Michael) are rather moving and I felt strangely reminded of Ryan being accepted into the Cohen Family in The OC. Talking of which, if The OC isn't too kitschy for you, than neither is this. Yet, bear in mind though that an OC episode is a half an hour long. This film is two hours of Hollywood at its worst (kitsch).
With regards to tomorrow's nominations, you are probably wondering whether Sandra Bullock should be nominated for an Oscar. Is a nomination necessary? About as necessary as it was to make a sequel to Speed, if you ask me.