A poor, undereducated 344-pound African-American teenager in Memphis, whose father was murdered and whose mother was a crack addict, is shuffled through the public school system, despite his low grade point average and absenteeism. But his tremendous size and quickness attracts the interest of a wealthy white couple who take him in and groom him both athletically and academically to become one of the top high school football prospects in the country.
In football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play. The young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school-such as, say, how to read or write. Nor has he ever touched a football.
What changes? He takes up football, and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. Their love is the first great force that alters the world’s perception of the boy, whom they adopt. The second force is the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist turns out to be the priceless combination of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback’s greatest vulnerability: his blind side.
Read the Full Production Notes
The Blind Side
Starring: Quinton Aaron, Sandra Bullock, Kathy Bates, Lily Collins, Tim McGraw, Kim Dickens, Adriane Lenox
Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Screenplay: John Lee Hancock
Release Date: November 20, 2009
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for one scene involving brief violence, drug and sexual references.
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $255,959,475 (82.8%)
Foreign: $53,248,834 (17.2%)
Total: $309,208,309 (Worldwide)