Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment and Kevin Spacey in "Pay It Forward."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film an: Stars: Kevin Spacey and Haley Joel Osment Director: Mimi Leder Rated: PG-13 Length: 122 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(October 20, 2000) -- Can each of us change the world through an act of kindness?

That's the question posed by Pay It Forward, an affecting film with Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and astonishing 12-year-old Haley Joel Osment.

Osment plays Trevor McKinney, an eighth-grader in a Las Vegas school. He's the latch-key son of Arlene (Hunt), an alcoholic waitress working two jobs.

Trevor seeks value in life, but it's difficult when he stumbles upon Mom's hiding places for booze.

Then Trevor's new teacher, Eugene Simonet (Spacey), assigns a yearlong project: "Think of an idea to change our world -- and put it into action." Most students offer up embarrassed giggles and silly ideas. But Trevor develops the concept of "paying it forward."

The idea? Do something good for three people. They should then each do something good for three more people -- paying it forward. Thus, kindness will spread, exponentially.

It's an idealized vision made believable by this film, at least within the narrow realm of young Trevor's life.

He invites a homeless man in for breakfast and a shower, for example. And he tries to push his teacher and his mother into a romance that he hopes will solve all their problems.

The mother's problem, of course, is alcohol, along with low self-esteem, thanks to Trevor's now-departed, abusive father.

Simonet is also troubled, mostly by the burn scars covering his face and body. He doesn't talk about them, but they've left him a lonely, insecure man.

Pay It Forward offers all the ingredients of a three-handkerchief weepie, but director Mimi Leder keeps the emotions simmering below the surface until the operatic finale.

Screenwriter Leslie Dixon's adaption of the novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde offers us three intriguingly complex characters, and each is fleshed out through memorable performances.

Spacey plays Simonet as an intelligent but timid man, whose scars run deeper than what appears on his face. Hunt is equally believable as the bleached-blonde working-class waitress, battling demons of her own.

Surpassing even these Oscar winners, though, is Osment, the young Sixth Sense star who displays even more emotional range. I usually suspect that great youth performances are the result of careful casting and manipulative direction. Osment, though, is already a superb actor.

We're carried through Pay It Forward by the boy's emotional development, his concern for people and his innate goodness and growing courage. We believe his every gesture, statement, action and reaction.

Leder is less successful with the casting of Angie Dickinson as a homeless woman. That comes off as a distracting stunt.

And Leder's flashback framework sometimes blurs the story's time line between past and present.

Some will argue that Pay It Forward goes too far in the film's final reel. However, the concluding action will make sense at least to viewers who view the film as an object lesson in Christian behavior.