'Blind': Not exactly by the book

In the book "The Blind Side," Nick Saban arrives at the Touhy mansion in Memphis, Tenn., to recruit Michael Oher for Louisiana State University. Walks in, leaving a trail of snake oil. Looks around at the opulent decor and says, "I just love those window treatments."

In the movie based on the book, Saban walks in, leaving a trail of snake oil, looks around and says, "I love what you've done with the Windsor valances . . . a nice touch."

The versions have one thing in common. When Saban speaks, Leigh Anne Touhy's heart and eyelashes flutter like hummingbird wings.

Nit-picking? OK.

So how come, in the book, the NCAA investigator comes to the Touhy mansion to investigate who paid for Oher's food, clothing and redneck truck while he was enrolled at this fancy-schmancy Christian high school, and what made him choose Ole Miss.

But in the movie based on the book, the NCAA lady (with the top button of her starched blouse unbuttoned) interrogates the distraught left tackle in a sterile conference room, throwing questions like poison darts across the length of a 15-foot conference table.

Hollywood is always doing that, twisting the truth to make a cinematic point.

In the book, Oher hunts down and beats up a mouthy teammate who made raunchy remarks about Leigh Anne Touhy and her daughter. So how come, in the movie, Oher thrashes a drug dealer and his henchmen after the smarmy drug dealer makes raunchy remarks about Leigh Anne Touhy and her daughter?

Maybe this helps explain why Oher never met with Aaron Quinton, the actor who plays him in the movie. Maybe that helps explain why Oher did not attend the New York premiere of the movie.

We won't know why Oher hoards his innermost thoughts until he writes a book of his own or cooperates with someone making a documentary about his inspirational story: homeless, hungry, huge black kid adopted by white Southern family wealthy enough to hire him a full-time tutor, Miss Sue.

The producers tell you it isn't a football movie, but a mom-and-son movie. Producers always say that, because most football movies are death at the box office.

Sandra Bullock, playing Leigh Anne Touhy, dominates the movie. Pats the high school football coach on the rump as she struts past him at a scrimmage to explain to the confused, timid Oher that he has to regard the quarterback as family, and protect his blind side.

Hoo ha, an epiphany.

Oher becomes tigerish. First game, he blocks a mouthy defensive tackle down the field, dumps him over a fence. Explains later that he was dragging him to the visiting team bus, because it was time for him to go home.

That game-action scene is part of the inevitable lesson that bigots come in all shapes and sizes. Mrs. Touhy confronts the bearded, baseball-capped loudmouth sitting a few rows back, and wins that war of words.

There's another requisite scene, the ladies who lunch, where she grows weary of her girlfriends' innuendo about her motives in bringing Oher into the home where her precocious little boy and her teenage daughter reside.

The little boy is freckled and bucktoothed and straight out of "Our Gang." The high school football coach resembles Barney Fife. Let the record show that in real life, the high school coach gets a job at Ole Miss, more scent for the NCAA bloodhounds to follow.

Lewis tried to widen the audience for his book by starting out with Lawrence Taylor shattering Joe Theisman's leg on national TV and how that gruesome moment led to the search for beefy left tackles with quick feet, and a willingness to pay the best of them huge dollars.

Ole Miss kept changing coaches. Oher became a skillful left tackle, big enough and quick enough to entice the Baltimore Ravens to trade up to get him in the first round of the draft and give him a $13 million deal. He starts at right tackle for them.

The book is a lot better than the movie. Neither one digs deep, wondering why there are so many homeless people in the richest nation in the world. Nor do they ponder why so many people go hungry in the richest nation in the world. Nor do they examine why America's educational system fails so many kids, herding them along with Ds from one grade to the next until they drop out.

That book, and movie, will have to wait until Oher is ready to share his thoughts, and finds some producer who thinks outside the box (office).