When Michael Oher takes the field as a Baltimore Raven this fall, a national audience of readers and moviegoers even bigger than the Ravens' fan base will be cheering for him. The amazing story behind his rise to football stardom will fill the nonfiction shelves at bookstores on Oct. 12, with a new edition of Michael Lewis' powerhouse piece of nonfiction "The Blind Side."
And if all goes according to plan, it will also pack movie theaters on Nov. 20, when writer-director John Lee Hancock's movie version hits theaters, starring newcomer Quinton Aron as Oher and Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw as Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy - the wealthy, white, conservative, evangelical couple who devoted themselves to the happiness and success of "Big Mike," a black kid from the meanest streets of Memphis, Tenn.
Anyone writing about Lewis' extraordinary "The Blind Side" feels torn between trying to convey its magical counterpoint of robust, supple emotion and brilliant analysis - and trying not to give away its constant stream of surprises.
FOR THE RECORD
A story in Friday's Movies section referred incorrectly to the school attended by Ravens rookie Michael Oher, whose story is told in the coming film "The Blind Side." He went to Briarcrest Christian School.
The Baltimore Sun regrets the error.
According to standardized tests or conventional observers, Michael Oher (pronounced "oar") was a lost cause when he entered Briarcliff Christian School, a private Memphis high school, as a 6-foot-5-inch, 340-pound giant with zero learning or communication skills and a profound inability to indicate his own desires. He abhorred human touch and appeared to be as determined to remain as inconspicuous as a natural pillar of strength could be.
No one (including Michael) knew where he'd sleep, what he'd wear or how he'd eat. Ralph Ellison wrote about the Invisible Man. Oher was the Invisible Boy-Man until a "special needs" teacher realized that he was absorbing class lessons with his remarkable hidden intelligence - and until the Tuohys (pronounced two-hees) recognized that he was a physical genius able to master an esoteric skill like a discus throw simply by seeing someone else do it.
Over the phone from his editing suite, Hancock says he's trying to keep the verve and freshness of a many-sided story that made him envision a film "not just as a sports movie and character comedy" but also an emotional journey and a mystery about character and fate.
