Pay it Forward: Movie Review, DVD Review (2000)

Directed by Mimi Leder, written by Leslie Dixon, based on the novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde, 122 minutes, rated PG-13.

(Originally published 2000)

Mimi Leder’s new film, “Pay it Forward,” stars Haley Joel Osment in his first movie since “The Sixth Sense.” This time out, he sees good people. Lots of good people. In fact, he comes to see a world full of them.

The film, which seems to be manufactured to furrow a cynic’s brow before bringing up their lunch, follows Osment as Trevor McKinney, the son of an alcoholic mother and father who’s inspired by his social studies teacher, Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey), to devise a plan that will change the world.

“Yes, there’s a world out there,” Simonet says to his 7th grade students. “And even if you don’t want to meet it, it’s still going to hit you right in the face.”

Since Trevor lives in Las Vegas, the task of changing the world may seem unduly difficult, if not impossible, given that he must begin his mission in Sin City. But Trevor, an 11-year-old boy who literally defines co-dependency, comes up with the novel idea of paying it forward--which essentially means that if someone helps you, you must pass that favor on to three other people, who must then pass it on themselves. And so on.

It’s a charming concept and one, Leder reveals at the start before fading into flashback, becomes a feel-good movement, the kind self-help gurus like Oprah or those “Chicken Soup for the Soul” people would appreciate and get behind. But by revealing the movement’s success, she’s essentially sucked her film of the tension it could have had if audiences were left with the lingering question of whether Trevor’s plan will work.

Countering that, Leder creates tension in other ways--namely, by having Trevor introduce his emotionally scarred mother, Arlene (Helen Hunt), to the physically and emotionally scarred Mr. Simonet, a man whose face and body were ruined in a fire.

If anything lifts “Pay if Forward” out of the tsunami of melodrama that Leder consistently hurls at it, it’s the dynamics of what happens between Arlene, Trevor and Simonet as their relationships gradually open into trust, friendship--and then love. Hunt, Osment and Spacey are so good in their roles, they actually ground the film, levening it with restraint and making it possible to overlook at least some of the script’s overt contrivances.

That is, unfortunately, until the end, when “Pay it Forward” leaps into the deep end of the ocean with two miserable twists that no performance can save. The first twist swirls around Simonet, the second around Trevor, and while neither will be revealed here, each nearly kills all that came before. Indeed, in Leder’s brazen, misguided effort to say something meaningful about our culture and the human experience, she goes too far, punctuating her themes of good samaritanism with two hugely unnecessary exclamation points.

Grade: C