Will the highly anticipated motion picture The Blind Side become the Rudy of the new millennium? Could a 6-8, 380-pound actor win an Oscar? With The Blind Side hitting theaters November 20, mainstream media outlets are asking some good questions, but they may be overlooking the most significant one of all:  Could this movie be the catalyst that changes the way America views its homeless children and how families approach adoption and foster care?

Thanks to the conservative-yet-adventurous Christian family portrayed in The Blind Side, the movie's leading actress, Sandra Bullock (The Proposal, Crash), sure seems to think so. "Adoption and foster care haven't been on the forefront of people's minds, but it's on the forefront of my mind every day now when I get up," she says. "When I look around, I go, is he, is she? What is their situation? And it's because of this family. I think that what they're going to do for our country, in terms of being aware of that, will be profound."

Faith on the Move

The remarkable true story of Memphis, Tenn.'s Tuohy family was first told in the 2006 New York Times best seller The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis (Moneyball, Liar's Poker). As the author explains, Sean Tuohy may be the successful owner of 80 fast-food restaurants, and also be the radio color commentator for the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies, but Sean learned about poverty the hard way, having lived as a child in the projects of New Orleans. And his brilliantly assertive wife Leigh Anne? An accomplished interior decorator, she was raised the daughter of an extremely racist United States Marshal.

If only he could see her family now. The Blind Side, the movie based on Lewis' book, reveals how the Tuohys and their two children came to know and then welcome Michael Oher, a 6-foot-5, 350-pound African American teenager living on the streets, into their family. The shy son of an absent father and a mother addicted to crack cocaine, "Big Mike" had lived in various foster homes, slept on neighborhood porches and attended eleven different schools before applying for admission to Memphis' Briarcrest Christian School when he was 16. Despite Oher's disheartening 0.9 grade point average, Briarcrest welcomed him with hopes that he would apply himself as a student, and then become a standout on the football team. When the Tuohys and Briarcrest's faculty invested themselves in Oher, he not only turned his grades around and raised the school's profile among prestigious college football programs, most importantly, he showed the Tuohys how to be a family.

"Michael was a blessing for the Tuohys, because he came in at a time when they were all off doing their own thing and not really connecting as a family," explains Quinton Aaron (Be Kind Rewind, Fighting), the unusual 25-year-old actor who stars in the central role as Oher. "He brought them together. He showed them the true value of what a family really is, and they showed him a real family."

While the Tuohy's evangelical Christian faith isn't pushed on audiences in the new movie, which also stars Tim McGraw (Friday Night Lights, Flicka) and Oscar winner Kathy Bates (Misery,  Titanic), The Blind Side does portray it respectfully both in the script and in how it is filmed. Thanks, in a large part, should go to veteran filmmaker John Lee Hancock (The Rookie, The Alamo), who wrote the screenplay and directed The Blind Side. Hancock, himself a believer, also emphasized the importance of finding an actor who would meet the qualifications "both physically and spiritually" to fill the main role as Oher. When Hancock finally discovered Aaron, the director scored in spades: Gentle giant? Check. Follower of Christ? Check. Played high school football in the South? Check. Experienced poverty first hand? Check. Might win the Oscar? Check back with the L.A. Times who originally posed the question.