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Pay It Forward (2000) Warner Brothers 2 hrs. 1 min. Starring: Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment and Jon Bon Jovi Directed by: Mimi Leder 
Pay It Forward Rating:  
E-MAIL GIANCARLO DE LISI Sentimentality has always played a major part in Hollywood Cinema. Yet, never has it been so prevalent and force-fed down our very throats than in “Pay It Forward”. Director Mimi Leder (Deep Impact, The Peacemaker) recruits Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment to characterize the emotions from the novel of the same name into what proves to be a gigantic two-hour TV movie of the week. Trouble is, Leder uses way too much sentimentality resulting in a bogged down film that leaves audiences confused on whether or not to laugh or cry at the films’ truly predictable ending. At the time of the film’s release it was criticized from every possible angle due to its’ sentimentality and; excuse the expression, cheesiness. Yet, its’ sentimentality is what differs this film from others, but the sentimentality is also what hinders it. Haley Joel Osment plays 11-year-old Trevor who while in attendance at his Social Studies class presents his assignment to Mr. Simonett (Kevin Spacey) about making the world a better place. It includes helping a person in need, and then asking them to pay it forward by helping 3 others in need, and then those three help three others…You get the point. As far as the film goes, it juggles from analyzing the relationship between Mr. Simonett and the newfound relationship between himself and Trevor’s mother (Helen Hunt) and this ever-progressing movement of ‘paying it forward’. At the beginning of the film, Trevor introduces his new plan by helping out a homeless man, and as a result, the film tracks this ascension of the deeds of one person to another beginning with this homeless man (James Cavaziel). The flashbacks that track the deeds happening are thanks to Jay Mohr who plays a reporter trying to report on this movement that reached Los Angeles from its’ roots in Las Vegas. The film simultaneously and ineffectively crosscuts between the progression of this movement and the romantic happenings of Spacey and Hunt. With disastrous consequences it only lends a small portion of the film to this movement while it becomes a full throttle romantic drama that tries to capture the tension between the two main characters. It teases the audiences with scenes that display humanity’s great side when a woman is attempting suicide and a passer-by pleads with her to save his empty life by having a cup of coffee. Or what about a strange man giving his Jaguar away to another for getting his car wrecked? These are all great examples that the film does not follow-up on, instead it simply teases us by showing little snippets and then focusing on a relationship that the audience could not care about. What keeps us watching this slow film is the complex range of characters that make us want to discover the unveiling of their inner demons at the very end of the film. From Mr. Simonett’s scarred facial features to Trevor’s repressed anger, all these characters reveal their secrets at the very end in a syrupy mix of missed euphoria only to discover that the audience has stopped caring. Furthermore, it is all mangled up in a deep, wet, buttery layer of emotion that is used as a mechanism to make us cry and care, but in the end causes the opposite reaction. We do not care and slowly stop caring for the film from the one-hour mark. The film is well done, but simply gets dumbed down by complex characters and bad editing. Another negative point is the manner in which all the secrets unfold at the very end of the film resulting in a myriad of emotions hitting the audience that ultimately do not set off the expected emotion. All this results in a tepid and contrived film that may leave people confused or leave people laughing. Click here to comment on this review or post your own thoughts. Giancarlo De Lisi © TheWorldJournal.com |
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