The Blind Side is the fifth Best Picture nominee I consider in my quest for the worst movie review of an Oscar contender. I have to confess that I made a mistake when I wrote about Avatar, suggesting that it might win an award for the most heavily dissed film. The Blind Side is the clear winner. I can find no unequivocal rave reviews, but quite a few that regard The Blind Side as an absolute stinker (see the Village Voice for a wonderful diss). While I was surprised that Avatar should be nominated in the Best Picture category, I noted that at least it was engaging and entertaining. The Blind Side doesn’t even have those redeeming qualities. It is a flat, predictable story devoid of tension and drama. It should have been called The Bland Side — or, given Sandra Bullock’s dye job, The Blond Side. It is indisputably the worst film I’ve seen this year and I am shocked to find it considered alongside films like An Education, The Hurt Locker, and A Serious Man.
How could such tripe ever get nominated in the first place? Because I don’t live in America, it’s difficult for me to gauge the inner workings of American culture, but one possible explanation is that this is a case of liberal Hollywood throwing a bone to the rabid dogs of the culture wars. The film is enormously popular amongst conservative evangelical Christians (it’s set in and around a Memphis Christian school) and reviews like this one from crasswalk.com are typical. Groups like the American Family Association have delighted in Bullock’s semi-conversion and reason that, if making the film has such an effect on the esteemed Ms. Bullock, then God’s hand must have been in it, and God can’t make bad films. Just ask Charleton Heston.
So, God or no God, what’s wrong with The Blind Side?
Dull Story
First is a screenplay that is as predictable as a Big Mac. Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) persuades her husband, Sean (Tim McGraw), to support her personal charity project: rescuing poor black Michael “Big Mike” Oher (Quinton Aaron) and giving him a shot at a football scholarship. They welcome him from the projects and into their mansion, buy him stuff, get him a tutor to boost his GPA, and orchestrate interviews with prospective colleges. Big Mike plays some good ball, gets a scholarship. Based on a true story. Tug on my heart strings.
But where’s the dramatic tension that drives the story and engages the viewers? We come close a couple times, but the situations are diffused with platitudes as sickly sweet as cotton candy dipped in maple syrup. A case in point is the luncheon with Tuohy’s sister and southern belle friends who genteelly question her about the big black boy who appears in the family Christmas card. It’s clear they disapprove in their own politically correct racist way, but, says one friend, “Honey, you’re changing that boy’s life.” To which Tuohy glibly replies: “No, he’s changing mine.” The issue never arises again. Get me a bucket.
Horrible Acting
Quinton Aaron, as Big Mike, offers as much emotional range as a piece of cardboard. Jae Head as the Tuohy son, is one of those annoying hyperactive child actors you’d like to dress in leg irons and drop in the harbour. And Bullock offers yet another convincing portrayal of Bullock playing Bullock, although this time she does it with a modest southern accent.
Pernicious Message
In my review of Precious, I had challenged the review by David Cox of The Guardian who had suggested that the film was an insult to the poor and a pernicious film. I think it was a simple case of a typo, because his observations in that context are dead on with reference to The Blind Side. The difference between the two films is that Precious tells the story of Precious, whereas The Blind Side tells the story of how the world ought to congratulate the Tuohy’s for reaching out to some black kid whose story, to the extent that we are told any of it, is utterly incidental. In effect, The Blind Side is masturbation. There’s more than cotton candy to that sticky feeling. Nowhere is that clearer than when Tuohy asks her husband: “Am I a good person?” and receives the only answer a sane husband can ever give in such a situation.
The pernicious element emerges when the Tuohy’s are considering whether or not they should legally adopt Big Mike. When Leigh Anne suggests they send him to a child psychologist because he might have issues, Sean says: “Michael’s gift is his ability to forget. He’s mad at no one and he doesn’t really care what happened in the past.” This is a kid who grew up with no father and was raised by a crack-addict mother who had at least twelve children by an assortment of men. Viewers can’t help but extrapolate from this exchange between a husband a wife to a wider message about how white people generally ought to think about race relations in the south. Let’s avoid serious self-examination. Let’s not bother to acknowledge hurt. Or try to heal. Let’s just forget the past.
I’ve noticed a curious tendency in the comments on the reviews that diss this film: many who think the film is wonderful take a passive-aggressive tack, suggesting that it can’t be criticized as racist because it’s a true story about real people who did in fact rescue a black kid from the projects and did in fact launch him on a successful pro ball career (Michael Oher was a 2009 draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens). I suppose that depends on what you mean by “true.” If “true” means “factual”, then this story is no more true than Avatar. Once it moved from an interview of the real Tuohys to a concept pitched to Warner Bros. to a screenplay pitched to actors, it had gone through more layers of interpretation than a game of “Telephone” in a kindergarten class. If, on the other hand, “true” means “a vehicle that speaks truth,” one that gives voice to the stories of those who might otherwise go unheard, one that speaks to questions of justice and invites compassionate listening, then this movie is as false a piece as I’ve ever watched.