Michael Oher is not mentally retarded in real life (based on his interviews) nor is he on the verge of Gigantism. The movie's portrayal of him is a curious thing. His biological father did not commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, he was murdered in prison by another inmate. Why would a movie completely fictionalize these things?
shareDramatic reasons. They alter stories to make things more dramatic and to suit a narrative. Sometimes they don't do it a lot because they found drama within the story itself. I'm not that familiar with Oher's real life; I have no idea if they could have gotten a decent story out of it, but that's why they change it: they're not interested in mimicking real life.
shareYes but to portray him as a person with a mental impairment (even a mild one) is insulting especially since it was not true. Even more so with his biological father who was a murder victim in prison and not a free man who decided to kill himself by jumping off a bridge.
shareI'm not arguing for it or saying it's right. But that's why they do it. Writers look at the story and go, "I can make a script out of that," or they don't. If it's the latter, they'll alter it until they have a script. A different writer might have altered the story less (or more). They're just trying to make a script work. Of course, there's pressure from studios, directors, and actors as well. Like, maybe Sondra Bullock signed on and wanted more screen time so they re-wrote to showcase her character more. Or maybe the director said he always wanted to do a story with a mental health angle and demanded a re-write. It could have been the producer who had some cockamamie idea of what was "commercial". Who knows? But they changed it.
shareYep. I think it's a shame to fudge real life people's stories, especially now in an age where you can go and get the facts after seeing the movie. But it's done all the time. I can think of 2 off the top of my head: Funny Girl and Jersey Boys.
Funny girl, though based off the real actress Fanny Bryce, is almost all fictional. She was married before she met Nick Arnstein and even visited him in prison when he was there for wiretapping and such. Not the sweet romantic story that you see in the movie.
With Jersey Boys, a lot of things have to be condensed and cut out to fit the style. Gyp DeCarlo, a known mobster, was supposedly considerably toned down in order to avoid any ...um...unpleasantries from people who may not like how he was portrayed.
The Tudors is another based off real life people that have artistic choices made as well. Henry the VIII had two sisters, Margaret and Mary, but in the show, they combined the two girls into one character.
Again, I prefer more accurate depictions; especially if the person the movie is being made about is still alive to see the changes. But movie companies also want to make money and if we did a 100% accurate portrayal of someone's life, it would be very boring.
I think your last statement, yes, I agree with that. The closer they can get to the original story, the better. There's a bit of a slider-scale there for me, and I acknowledge that I'd rather watch a good movie than watch a movie slavishly replicate "real life" and turn out something that's a chore to watch and just drags on and on.
It also, to me, depends what they're cutting or omitting and what it affects. For instance, when doing a biopic, it's going to be necessary to condense aspects of a person's life - it's a whole life. But if the focus of the film is on one specific day or incident, then more can be preserved.
How justified it is depends on what it does to the story and what it means to people learning about it, too. With your example in The Tudors, it would depend on how much historical accuracy depends on Henry's having both sisters. I'm not expert here, I can't comment, but if these people didn't really do anything historically noteworthy, then it's not that important. On the other hand, I do think that there's an obligation to not misinform viewers about history. There is a lot of pro-American revisionism in historical films. The Patriot, for instance, paints the British as arrogant, incompetent, or barbaric. U-571 pretends the British crew are American. Argo doesn't want a mission involving a lot of Canadians, so they just shove those guys to the side. For the record, I haven't seen Argo, but I did enjoy the other two films. That said, I don't think of them as being great movies, and part of that is their lack of accuracy.
Other times, the film requires that licence to tell the story at all. Amadeus is a brilliant film and wouldn't exist if the truth - Salieri didn't hate Mozart's stinking guts - was adhered to. To tell a story about jealousy, talent, and one man's struggle with God, they had to make it up.
He was not portrayed as mentally retarded.
Also a lot of times when you have a child that grows really fast Gigantism is the first thing they think of. My son went through a battery of tests over two years before they ruled it out and now as a grown man, he is tall, but ridiculously or anything.
I cant speak to the rest of the stuff as its been many years since I saw this movie but I would recommend reading his book called Beating The Odds. It was a pretty amazing read.
He was portrayed as ''slow'' and they mentioned the 80 IQ in the film. He spoke no more than single word sentences in it as well. Watching the real Michael Oher in interviews he doesn't seem anything like this. They really went with the ''Big, black dummy'' angle here in this film. Many older movies are unfairly written off as racist by ''WOKE'' standards today but this film really does have a racist slant. It's actually very offensive.
People tend to compare this movie to ''precious'' as they came out at the same time and both featured black characters who were up against the odds. ''Precious'' was considered even back then to be filled with racist stereotypes while ''the blind side'' was considered uplifting. Precious wasn't a stereotype but a raw film about someone with little supports at the height of Reagan era trying to stay alive despite the dire circumstances. The Blind Side portrays black people as ''pets'' needing to be taken in by a white family in order to thrive because they can't make it on their own.
It is a bit of a white savior movie but it was also based in truth. Did they change a few details like nearly every true story movie ever, yes. But overall, that is still the story.
He was not portrayed as slow. He was portrayed neglected, which he was, which in turn, meant he was behind. That is much different that being mentally challenged.
Agree. I never took his character as 'slow'. Shy, unsure, untrusting, yes. They reference Ferdinand the Bull so explain why he was so quiet and restrained. I never took it as anything else. I think another issue that might be causing this is they are using the same actor to portray Michael through a few years. so it can be easy to mistake a man who looks older but is supposed to be in high school but is playing timid as slow as opposed to maybe having a younger actor and aging him thru the years.
I don't know Michael's story so I don't know how many years the movie depicts. That's just a though of mine.
Michael Oher apparently didn't care for his depiction in the movie.
shareI read that and it's a shame but understandable. It's a good and uplifting movie on it's own. But when you make a movie about a real person who is still alive to watch it, that can be tough on the subject. 'That's not what happened,' 'That's not what I look like'. I just found out that Frankie Valli was NOT a fan of the Jersey Boys movie and that made me sad because I thought Eastwood did a great job turning the show into a movie. But when it's your story, of course you are going to be insanely (and justifiably) critical.
shareThis article breaks down the differences
https://mydailymagazine.com/record-the-oher-michael-sets-h0/10/