Book and Movie Review: The Blind Side

I finished reading The Blind Side by Michael Lewis a few weeks ago and finally watched the movie, starring Sandra Bullock, about a week ago. I like to read the book before I see the movie. It probably wouldn't have made that big of a deal with this one, though.

The gist of this true story is that this wealthy white couple in Memphis take in a poor black kid, Michael Oher, who attends the same school as their children and then provide him with a home, help him improve his life and then lead him on the path to becoming a multi-million-dollar professional football player. The titles of the book and movie refer to the position of left tackle, which protects the blind side of the quarterback. The book contains a lot more football speak than does the movie and I actually found that pretty interesting. It explains a lot about the history and development of the left tackle position, of which I knew very little. I knew that was going to be mostly cut out of the film, though, and it was. I can't blame them. The three sentence narrative they provided was good enough for most viewers.

The story of Michael Oher and the Tuohys who take him in is the typical tug-at-your-heartstrings type of story and I won't lie that I like those types of stories. The depths of Oher's poverty and shoddy childhood are astounding. The openness and kindness shown to him by the Tuohys is amazing. You really can't go wrong there and it was interesting in the book and perhaps more interesting in the movie. I won't lie that I felt the book dragged at times. They always change things when they make a movie out of a book and I found myself wondering about a few of the seemingly senseless changes (like when certain events happened or the fact that they did not have Michael and the Tuohy daughter graduate together). I don't think the movie truly depicts how much work Michael had to put in to get his grades up and I guess that's fine. I also found the book's description of how the various colleges wooed him way more interesting than they showed in the movie. But overall, I liked both the book and the movie. If I have to recommend just one, however, I would recommend the movie.