director
Mimi Leder
screenwriter
Leslie
Dixon
based on
the novel by
Catherine
Ryan Hyde
producers
Peter Abrams
Robert L. Levy
Steven Reuther
cinematographer
Oliver Stapleton
music
Thomas Newman
editor
David Rosenbloom
cast
Kevin Spacey (Eugene Simonet)
Helen Hunt (Arlene McKinney)
Haley Joel Osment (Trevor McKinney)
Jay Mohr (Chris Chandler)
Jim Caviezel (Jerry)
Jon Bon Jovi (Ricki McKinney)
Angie Dickinson (Grace)
David Ramsey (Sidney)
Kathleen Wilhoite (Bonnie)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 123m
u.s.
release: October 20,
2000
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official website
other mimi
leder films
reviewed on this website:
- deep
impact
|
The
rules of "Pay It Forward," the do-gooder plan outlined
in the mawkish new movie of the same title, are simple: You do
a big favor for someone, and that someone turns around and does
favors for three other people, each of whom will do favors for
three other people, and so on. I will now do you
a big favor by telling you how lame Pay It Forward is.
If you go forth and tell three other people how lame it is, my
job will be done, and imagine how much better off the world will
be.
Well, maybe not. But maybe if the word spreads and an anti-Pay
It Forward movement starts up, movies like this won't continue
to be made. (Maybe.) The movie, directed by Mimi Leder (Deep Impact)
from a script by Leslie Dixon, is certainly spring-loaded for
Oscars: We have two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey, Oscar winner
Helen Hunt, and Oscar nominee Haley Joel Osment (the haunted
boy in The
Sixth Sense), and boy, let me tell you, they just act
their asses off; I mean, there's some serious acting going
on here. Everyone gets at least one Big Scene; Spacey and Hunt,
by my count, get about four apiece, and little Haley isn't far
behind. How odd that all these Big Scenes should add up to such
a paltry movie.
Seventh-grader Trevor McKinney (Osment) comes up with "Pay
It Forward" in answer to a challenge by his social-studies
teacher, Mr. Simonet (Spacey), to devise an idea that will change
the world. Trevor is one of those noble suffering kids you only
meet in movies; he has an alcoholic mom (Hunt) and an absent
father (and, as played by the non-actor Jon Bon Jovi, he should've
stayed absent). Regardless, Trevor is selfless enough to try
to help others, including a homeless junkie (Jim Caviezel) as
well as his mom and teacher, for whom he plays Cupid.
Trevor's Twelve Stations of the Cross are interrupted every now
and then so that we can follow a reporter (Jay Mohr, who belongs
in sharper stuff than this) who's trying to track down the origin
of "Pay It Forward." Trevor's idea, you see, has become
a movement -- its fingers reach from Trevor's Las Vegas
home all the way to San Francisco. People have been paying it
forward, one of whom, a bag lady living out of her car (Angie
Dickinson!), turns out, in a nonsensical surprise, to be Hunt's
estranged mom. Hold on, back up. Trevor thinks nothing of inviting
a homeless junkie into his house to eat Cap'n Crunch and sleep
in the garage, but he doesn't think to say "Hey Grandma,
come home with me and have some cereal"?
Spacey manages to rescue some of his scenes, at least the ones
that don't force him to drop the Kevin Spacey cool we know and
love; but what happened to Helen Hunt? She's trying way too hard
here to be the next Meryl Streep, always tensed up, and I was
shocked to see this formerly subtle comedian chugging a bottle
of whiskey during her relapse scenes as if acting in one of those
Very Special TV movies she transcended 20 years ago. (Hell, she
was better in the 1982 TV biopic Quarterback Princess
than she is here. The only time she really relaxes here is when
acting opposite Kathleen Wilhoite, who plays her friend in recovery
-- and who played her friend in Quarterback Princess.
It's a cool little reunion for those who saw the TV movie.) Osment
is as appealing as he was in The Sixth Sense, and that's
the problem -- he's appealing in almost the same quiet, smart-little-kid
way; the only scene I fully enjoyed involving all three fine
actors was a quick scene in which teacher, mother, and excitable
boy are sitting around (or, in Trevor's case, jumping around)
watching wrestling on TV.
In all, Pay It Forward is the stickiest pile of moosh
since Patch
Adams, and it has a comparable tragic ending that invalidates
the film's message. Someone attempts to carry out Trevor's mission,
and it backfires; we're left thinking, "Okay, if that's
what happens when you try to help, why try to help?" Well,
because if you fall in the line of charity, your face gets on
TV, and lots of sobbing people congregate outside your house
holding candles. The traffic of cars heading to the mass mourning
seems to be backed up for miles; all I could think about during
this allegedly heart-rending coda was how much it would suck
if someone were having a heart attack or their house were on
fire, and the ambulance or fire engine were stuck in that traffic.
It's a good thing I didn't eat a big meal before seeing the movie,
because the ending would've been enough to make me pay it forward. |
