I experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance when they showed the real Michael Oher at the end of The Blind Side.

No, not because the young actor Quinton Aaron doesn't look much like the Ravens rookie offensive tackle—although he doesn't. But because the real Michael Oher walked with his head up—he had an athlete's gait, a quiet confidence. He wasn't the halting, shoe-gazing, nearly mute man-child depicted in the film.

No wonder it's rumored that Oher is not a fan of the film. It turned him into Forrest Gump.

And that, in a nutshell, is my problem with the film. There were pretty much two ways to do Oher's fascinating real-life story—as a teen, he was rescued from the streets of Memphis (his real mom was a junkie and his father was out of the picture) and ultimately adopted by a wealthy white family. You can dig deep, show the larger social and personal ramifications of this act of kindness, and the inevitable conflicts that arose. Or you can do a neatly scrubbed, sit-com ready, Disneyfied version of the events.

Guess which one this film chose?

Which is not to say the film isn't enjoyable. Sandra Bullock gives an extravagantly entertaining performance as Leigh Anne Touhy, the Southern spitfire who adopted Oher. The Blind Side, you see,  is her story, not Oher's (he's pretty much just a prop.) We're meant to marvel at her sass, her stubbornness, her generous doses of Southern-fried wisdom.

Tim McGraw is on hand as her dutiful husband. (He's the Ricky Ricardo of this sitcom fantasy—always shaking his head fondly at his wife's antics.) Then there is the precocious younger son S.J. (Jae Head), who gets lots of laughs with his pint-sized hustler ways. Very little screen time is given to the Touhy's teenage daughter (Lily Collins), although they do at least bother to ask her if she minds having a 17-year-old boy sleeping in the bedroom next door.

(Not to worry, as depicted on screen, Oher is the only 17-year-old boy on the planet who isn't interested in sex.)

So yes, what we have here is an ersatz inspirational film-fun, easily uplifting, and totally shallow. It deflects any criticism by annoucing, "But it's a true story!" But my eyes don't lie. There's a real Michael Oher out there—too bad we didn't get to meet him.