Author Michael Lewis titled one chapter 'Freak of Nurture' in his terrific nonfiction source book, 'The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game.' The overriding virtue of the movie is that it fleshes out the inspiring idea that a young man from a destructive environment can bloom in a caring one, even if he's already in his teens when he gets there. And it does so with an affection that, in retrospect, makes you wince at Lewis' playful use of 'freak.' The writer-director, John Lee Hancock, understands football, the expansive energy of the Tuohys, a nouveau-riche Christian family in the New South, and the throttled energy of Oher, who was a homeless adolescent from West Memphis, Tenn., when a Christian private school on the opposite side of town accepted him as a scholarship student. What makes the story such rich movie material is that its drama and comedy are so inherently visual, starting with this gentle black titan entering a lily-white academy. He casts a giant shadow, physically and emotionally. He attracts sympathetic people such as Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy with his mixture of power and delicacy. The Tuohys are sure-fire movie subjects: She's a svelte, blond interior designer with a prickly-funny alertness and a disdain for pointless tradition. He wears a simmering amusement on his mug, as if he knows he's won at the game of life as a former college basketball star turned broadcaster and fast-food mini-tycoon. Sandra Bullock employs her laserlike precision and comic zest for good as Leigh Anne. She fills the vacant spaces of the movie with her purposeful bustle, and she gets to use her underemployed ability to bring herself up short when her calculations or her impulses race ahead of her core emotions. The way she portrays Tuohy, she enters mission mode with Michael partly because it answers her needs for an even more rooted and gratifying family life. She's the one who prods Oher's coach into better uses of him on the football field. She recognizes that his 'protective instincts' can be a weapon on the gridiron. Bullock's Leigh Anne and Tim McGraw's Sean appear to have staying-power as well as fun. You could say he anchors her, if you can imagine an anchor that curves with an effortless twinkle. McGraw is a natural actor; he's calming in a good way. So is Quinton Aaron, who, as Oher, must convey the awakening consciousness inside a fellow who has never learned to communicate. His huge presence envelops the film and minimizes the damage of its reliance on 'big moments.' But some of the cast isn't in the same class. Shockingly, Ray McKinnon, a gifted Southern actor and filmmaker, turns Oher's coach into a cartoon. And the director indulges Jae Head's amateurish boy's-boyishness as Michael's new little brother, Sean Jr. It's understandable that Hancock doesn't attempt to encompass the full scope of Lewis' book. Still, it's regrettable that he never figures out how to express Oher's extraordinary physical intelligence. What's worse is that, as a filmmaker, he lays everything out too neatly. But 'The Blind Side' still has the cheering clatter of home truth. It speaks of faith, hope and charity with the down-to-earth tones and rhythms of a high school percussion band. 