Is it possible for one idea to change the world?
Features: DVD
Everything in social studies teacher Eugene Simonet's (Kevin Spacey) life is in order--every shirt, every pencil, every person in its proper place. To keep the surface placid means never having to go deeper. And no one and nothing in his life has ever asked him to. Arlene McKinney (Helen Hunt) is a single mother hanging on by her fingertips, working two jobs, and struggling to raise her son, Trevor (Haley Joel Osment). She is trying to give him a new life, but in her absence she is losing him. Eugene gives Trevor's class an assignment: look at the world around you and fix what you don't like. But can you fix people?
"[Helen Hunt's] performance is vulnerable, direct and without vanity." A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"A sure thing!" Rita Kempley, Washington Post
"...one of those miracles-can-happen movies. You don't see it--you feel it." USA Today
"Remarkable! Deeply moving." Jeffrey Lyons, WNBC-TV
Editor's Note
Based on a best-selling novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde and boasting the star power of two Oscar winners and a young nominee--Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment--PAY IT FORWARD spins a heartwarming yarn about an 11-year-old boy who comes up with an utopian idea as a project for school. History teacher Eugene Simenot (Spacey) offers the same ongoing extra-credit assignment he has proffered every year: Come up with an idea that will change the world. However, he expects nothing more from his students than halfhearted efforts that fall far shy of their mark. Simenot is therefore unprepared for precocious, irrepressible Trevor McKinney (played with wide-eyed wonder by Osment), who conjures up a stunning scheme. Trevor suggests the concept that every person who benefits from someone else's good deed should "pay it forward," instead of paying it back, and in turn offer favors to three other people. The first guinea pig for Trevor's experiment is his overworked, imperfect mom (Helen Hunt) for whom he tries to find a boyfriend.Director Mimi Leder, best known for such powerful thrillers as DEEP IMPACT, imbues the solid script of PAY IT FORWARD with a more grandiose aura. However, it is the movie's triumvirate of heralded stars--Spacey, Hunt, and Osment--that propels this compelling yarn.
|
