Parents' Guide to The Blind Side

Based on a book about football strategy written by journalist Michael Lewis that included stories about Oher's experiences, this film intends to inspire but falls into stereotypes left and right. Bullock's winning effort paves the way in The Blind Side; her Leigh Anne disarms both Michael and audiences despite a level of sass that edges on caricature. Aaron's take on Michael is a little bit more textbook, but when he smiles, you forget for a moment that he's playing a role and really imagine him as the young Oher, quiet and thoughtful but not lost.

Director John Lee Hancock could have explored the challenges that Leigh Anne and Michael faced as they tried to meld their divergent backgrounds with more complexity. Did Oher have any doubts? Was everyone at the school really that embracing? Instead, Hancock goes for the superficial. He's in danger of too much sentimentality here -- that and condescension about racial prejudice and economic barriers. Even if you come in knowing nothing about Oher's real-world petition, which states that the Tuohys took advantage of him, the movie itself is a straightforward and entertaining film, if you can ignore its blind spots.