PAY IT FORWARD
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: A seventh grade teacher challenges
his students to change the world. Then one
implements a scheme that might just do it.
Given the premise, this is a surprisingly adult
and moving drama. It does not talk down to the
viewer. There is a lot of pain in the scarred
characters. Kevin Spacey again gives a solid
performance. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), low +2 (-4 to
+4)
A reporter's car is destroyed while he is getting a story on a hostage crisis. As he sadly looks at the wreckage a passing stranger throws him some car keys, making him the gift of a new Jaguar. But the benefactor has one condition. The reporter must do large favors for each of three deserving people of his own choice. And each of them must do three favors. Intrigued, the reporter sets out to find the origins of this benevolent pyramid scheme.
Flash back four months. In a Las Vegas junior high school, a new teacher, Mr. Simonet (played by Kevin Spacey) gives his seventh grade social studies class two tough assignments. The first is just to keep up with all the new vocabulary words he uses in his conversation. Not easy, but the second assignment is a lot harder. "Think of an idea that could change the world." Not an assignment frequently given to a junior high student. (At least not until high school teachers see PAY IT FORWARD.) Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) comes up with a plan more powerful than he realizes. He will do favors for three people, each of whom will pass the favor on threefold in an ever growing pyramid. Rather than paying back the favor they pay it forward. This part of Las Vegas certainly is a community that could use some altruism. Trevor's mother Arlene (Helen Hunt) is a recovering alcoholic who is a waitress in a casino by day and one in a strip joint by night. Arlene is infuriated when Trevor gives a homeless man the run of her house, and she goes to complain to Mr. Simonet.
There are several ways this story could have gone wrong. The people could have been instantly transformed by the power of good. Or everybody in the chain might have their lives dramatically changed by the scheme. Or the people might not be properly developed or only developed as one might expect for a film aimed at teens. In fact these are people who have had some hellish experiences and whose lives are not working out. The script could have pulled its punches in many different ways. The way that story does go wrong was in a much less offensive manner, thought wrong it does go at the very end. The filmmakers turn the heretofore realistic plotline into a slightly syrupy allegory toward the end. To that point they go out of their way to take a story that was not pat, and then they give it a pat ending. But then director Mimi Leder has had previous problems with the final reel of otherwise good movies. That was her problem with the film DEEP IMPACT. This screenplay was written by Leslie Dixon who wrote OVERBOARD and MRS. DOUBTFIRE. The writing is frequently moving and at times takes chances. I could probably have done without the love story. But for the ending and perhaps some gratuitous violence at the beginning the writing is good.
The plotting has been compared with what one might have gotten in a Frank Capra film and it is an apt analogy, though this screenplay has some harrowing realism, perhaps along the lines of LEAVING LAS VEGAS. Speaking of Las Vegas, when this film about a pyramid scheme shows the skyline of that city, it features the Luxor pyramid. Was it an intentional comment? Other writers have tried to do films in the Capra style. Notable particularly is THE HUDSUCKER PROXY by the Coen Brothers. This is a more successful attempt.
Helen Hunt seems to be showing up everywhere on the screen these days. She is in both PAY IT FORWARD and DR. T AND THE WOMEN, both currently playing in theaters. If that were not enough theaters are showing a trailer for WHAT WOMEN WANT starring Helen Hunt. Haley Joel Osment, formerly of THE SIXTH SENSE, seems to have been born with a face that just seems earnest and intense. But whatever part luck played, he is already a skillful actor who holds his own against adults, not with Shirley Temple cuteness, but with genuine acting intelligence. Kevin Spacey also exhibits acting intelligence, but then he is all grown up so it not quite the same feat. All three play scarred people, though Spacey's character's scars are the most obvious.
This is a good film worth seeing as I think the other half dozen or so people who saw it in the theater with me would agree. It is a pity it is not getting larger audiences. Perhaps people are underestimating the maturity of the storytelling. I rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
A comment for people who have seen the film: The chronology does not quite work in this film. The birthday party is maybe one day before the end of the film, but the invitation to the birthday party happened before the whole parallel sequence. Simply too much had to have happened in that interval of time.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 2000 Mark R. Leeper
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