Pay It Forward

It has been a long time since a movie brought tears to my eyes, but “Pay it Forward,” the new film from director Mimi Leder and screenwriter Leslie Dixon (from a novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde) did so more than once. Not at the big, obvious moments (for there are those), but at some of the smaller, more deeply felt, yet somehow more intense moments when the true nature of the people we see on screen is made blindingly clear. Set in Las Vegas, “Pay it Forward” stars Kevin Spacey as Eugene Simonet, a seventh-grade teacher afflicted with terrible scars on his face. He has learned to manage people’s response to his appearance, by withdrawing into a highly regimented life of ritual and routine. He is a good teacher, demanding yet fair. He does not patronize his students, he challenges them. As Eugene, Spacey demonstrates that he just may be the best actor in film today. It is an extraordinary performance, expertly modulated, which reveals Eugene’s character in the subtlest of details and verbal nuances.

Eugene gives his class an assignment: “Think of a way to make the world better, and put it into action.” One of his students is Trevor McKinney, a precocious eleven-year-old played by Haley Joel Osment (who was so memorable in “The Sixth Sense”). Osment is no one hit wonder. The picture may lean just a bit too heavily on his delicate features and wounded looks, but he does possess an exceptional screen presence and range of emotion, and his face captures a wisdom seemingly beyond his years. From the starting point of Eugene’s assignment, Trevor concocts the notion of “pay it forward.” Each person does a favor for three people, and each of those people, instead of paying it back, must pay it forward to three others. The catch is that the favor must be something difficult, and, in Trevor’s words, “something big, something they can’t do for themselves.” The chain of good deeds becomes the narrative line of the story. The movie even provides a proxy for us, in the form of down on his luck reporter Chris Chandler (Mohr). Chandler learns of the pay it forward idea when he is the recipient of one of the good deeds it is intended to foster.

The movie actually opens with this scene, and throughout the picture Chandler traces the chain back to its Las Vegas origins. Along with Chandler, we get to see some of the actions and consequences that develop. Trevor lives with his single mother, Arlene (Hunt), an alcoholic working two jobs and trying and failing to stay sober. When Trevor takes in a homeless man as his first “pay it forward” act, Arlene is mortified, and she races to the school to confront Eugene about exactly what ideas he has put in her son’s head. The relationship between Eugene and Arlene, two damaged people reaching for each other across a chasm of fear and doubt, is the heart of the picture. It would take an exceptional actress to match Spacey in this film, and fortunately Helen Hunt is up to the task. She is brilliant, giving a performance which holds nothing back. Every scene between Hunt and Spacey virtually vibrates with intensity. I am not fond of “Oscar material” talk, but it is only fair to say that Spacey and Hunt give two of the best performances of the year. Both of them create characters who come completely to life, and who remain vivid long after you leave the theater.

The filmmakers are smart enough to recognize that Trevor’s utopian idea is impractical, if not downright impossible. (The kids in Trevor’s class call out all the reasons it won’t work, and they are right.) They are honest enough to show that most of the “favors” don’t really work out (in fact, it seems as if none of Trevor’s will), and that some of the participants are less than entirely admirable, and some of the good works less than entirely wholesome. The chain of good deeds unfolds stutteringly, haphazardly. The deeds occur in the heat of the moment, spontaneously, not by careful planning. Confronted with the right situation, people simultaneously see the opportunity to do something good, and remember their obligation. The need to act then becomes irresistible, as if it were not under their conscious control, and it is the very act of doing that changes them, regardless of the outcome. Director Mimi Leder’s best known projects prior to this were the action thrillers “The Peacemaker” and “Deep Impact,” neither of which suggested that she had the right sensibility for “Pay It Forward.” But she helms this picture superbly, not only drawing out the great performances from her stars but displaying a fine visual sense in her use of the almost surreal Las Vegas landscapes. The picture also benefits from bright, crisp cinematography by Oliver Stapleton, and an evocative, minor key score by Thomas Newton. “Pay it Forward” has been criticized as melodramatic, as if effective use of plot were a crime. But the movie is not afraid of an idea, and, far more than its plot, the heart of the movie is its characters, and the superb work of Spacey and Hunt. The movie blends these elements memorably, in a way we wish all movies could. If this is melodrama, then I say let’s have more of it. It’s a wonderful picture. (10/24/2000)