Sandra Bullock locates the finest groove of her career in "The Blind Side," a true-to-life story (based on a best seller of the same title) about a wealthy, saintly family in Memphis, Tennessee, who take in a homeless black 17 year old. Under their care the boy — Michael Oher — flourishes. He plays college football, gets drafted by the Baltimore Ravens and goes on to NFL stardom. It's a win-win scenario, everyone's happy and a lot of grinning family photos (real ones) adorn the end credits. For all that, the only cast member with that enviable groove is Bullock. What happened?

Directed by John Lee Hancock ("Old Rookie"), the film pretends to be about Michael "Big Mike" Oher. But in actual fact it's Bullock as southern-mama extraordinaire Leigh Ann Tuohy who is gloriously and triumphantly ensconced as the centerpiece — a multitiered frosted cake presiding at a banquet table.

Appropriately, "The Blind Side" opened in the U.S. last year on Thanksgiving weekend and its treacly feel-good texture and patronizing, do-the-right-thing sentiments hit the mark. It was nominated for a slew of awards including Sandra Bullock as Best Actress at the Oscars. This is certainly her vehicle, and she rides it with the gasp-inducing agility of a bronco rider in high heels. Whatever else you may feel about the movie it's impossible not to fall under her spell and take-no-prisoners brand of authority. Certainly Leigh Ann's husband Sean feels it too; he has the air of a slavishly devoted but slightly bewildered puppy tagging at her heels. "Do I have a choice?" is his recurring line — albeit nicely; he says it like an indulgent Rhett Butler shaking his head at the whims of Scarlett O'Hara. And when Leigh Ann asks him: "Am I a good person?" he has the monumental good grace not to roll his eyes at the rhetoricalness of her question.