Product Details

• Actors: Kevin Spacey, Haley Joel Osment, Helen Hunt, Jay Mohr, James Caviezel
• Directors: Mimi Leder
• Writers: Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leslie Dixon
• Producers: Jonathan Treisman, Mary McLaglen, Paddy Carson, Peter Abrams, Robert L. Levy
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: May 15, 2001
• Run Time: 123 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (319 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005B4BI
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,125 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #2 in	Movies & TV > Drama > Family Life > Single Parents
  #3 in	Movies & TV > Drama > Family Life > Mothers & Sons

• For more information about "Pay It Forward" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Pay It Forward is a multi-level marketing scheme of the heart. Beginning as a seventh-grade class assignment to put into action an idea that could change the world, young Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) comes up with a plan to do good deeds for three people who then by way of payment each must do good turns for three other people. These nine people also must pay it forward and so on, ad infinitum. If successful, the resulting network of do-gooders ought to comprise the entire world. Trevor's attempts to get the ball rolling include befriending a junkie (James Caviezel) and trying to set up his recovering-alcoholic mother (Helen Hunt) with his burn-victim teacher (Kevin Spacey), who posed the assignment.

While this could have turned into unmitigated schmaltz, the acting elevates this film to mitigated schmaltz. By turns powerful and measured, the performances of Spacey, Hunt, and Osment can't make up for the many missteps in a screenplay that sanitizes the look of the lower-middle class and expects us to believe that homeless alcoholics and junkies speak in the elevated manner of grad students. (Can that really be Angie Dickinson as Hunt's dispossessed mother? Yes, it is!) The germ of the story is a good one, though, and one may wonder how it would have been handled by the likes of Frank Capra, who could balance sentiment with humor. But clearly Capra would never have let the ending of his version to take the nosedive into cliché and pathos that director Mimi Leder has allowed in this film. More than a few viewers will also recognize that Leder has blatantly borrowed her final image from Field of Dreams, where its intended effect was more keenly and honestly felt. --Jim Gay

Product Description

Just imagine. You do a favor that really helps someone and tell him or her not to pay it back, but to pay it forward to three other people who, in turn, each pay it forward to three more and on and on into a global outpouring of kindness and decency. Impossible? Junior high student Trevor McKinney wont accept that. Haley Joel Osment plays Trevor, who starts a chain reaction of goodness for his social studies project in this bittersweet and uplifting tale directed by Mimi Leder (Deep Impact), based on the novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde and also starring Academy Award winners Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. How much impact can one heartfelt idea have? Do yourself a favor and find out, see Pay It Forward.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FIVE HANKY TEARJERKER..., July 1, 2001

By	Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

I found this movie to be a compelling and moving cinematic experience, with outstanding, well nuanced performances by Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment, and James Caviezel. It is a bona fide tearjerker. Those who enjoy that genre of film should love this one.

The movie opens up with a hostage scene being played out in a residential neighborhood, with cops everywhere. A reporter arrives on the scene only to have the cops try and give him the bum's rush. While the cops are distracted by the reporter, the perpetrator leaves the scene in a sports utitlty vehicle, but not before crashing into and totalling the reporter's car. A mysterious stranger materializes and hands the reporter the keys to a new jaguar, saying that he is giving it to him, no strings attached, since he seems to have run into a little car trouble.

The movie then cuts to a scene four months earlier. The viewer is taken to a seventh grade class room where, in a wonderful scene, student, Trevor McKinney, played by Haley Joel Osment, takes his teacher's assignment of doing something that could potentially change the world to heart. His teacher, an intelligent and controlled man, played by Kevin Spacey, whose burn scarred face masks the scars on his heart, gives out this assignment cavalierly, not really expecting that any of his students will come up with something of real note.

It turns out that Trevor, intelligent and introspective, comes up with an idea whereby he performs a potentially life changing good deed for each of three people. They in turn each do the same for three people. He calls his idea "pay it forward". It is your basic pyramid scheme with a twist. Some of the things he does will tug at your heart strings. Some of them will tickle your funny bone. One thing is for sure, unless you are made of stone, you will be moved.

Meanwhile Trevor's stressed out mom, played by Helen Hunt, is a single parent, holding down two jobs. An alcoholic in the throes of a recovery, she does the best that she can. Split from Trevor's dad, himself an alcoholic who used to batter her, she is struggling to keep on even keel. When Trevor's execution of his teacher's assignment results in what appears to be a potentially life threatening situation, it causes his mom to hit the roof and go to the school, where she confronts the baffled teacher.

Ultimately, Trevor's mom and his teacher are brought together, through the contrivance of Trevor. What initially seemed impossible, becomes a reality, and a relationship blossoms. It turns out that they have more in common than was initially thought. Meanwhile, Trevor's plan is catching on, and a number of wonderful scenes in the film illustrate this.

What happens in this film will, at times, thrill and delight you. At other times, what happens will surely move you to tears. Some may call the movie manipulative and schmaltzy. It is simply just an old fashioned tearjerker.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I expected schlock, sugar and smaltz, not so! I LOVED IT!, May 24, 2001

By	K. Corn "reviewer" (Indianapolis,, IN United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Pay It Forward [VHS] (VHS Tape)

What a pleasant surprise this movie was! I avoided seeing it for awhile because of so many negative or so-so reviews I'd read and also because a friend told me the book was "sentimental and corny". But the movie was very believable and I can't help thinking that the only people who could fail to be moved by it would have to be hard-core cynics. Haley Joel Osmont proves his acting chops yet again (after his acclaimed his role in Sixth Sense), playing a middle-school student named Trevor who has a troubled home life, an alcoholic mother and an erratic, wayward father. When his new teacher, played by the superb Kevin Spacey, gives an imaginative class assignment, daring the students to "change the world" Trevor takes his homework to a new extreme, changing not only his life but that of his teacher. While parts of this movie do challenge the viewer's ability to suspend belief and seem somewhat unreal, it is a rare treat to see such a trio of talented actors come together for such a worthy idea. Don't be surprised to find yourself reaching for the tissues while watching this movie. I came to it with negative preconceptions and reluctance and was surprisingly moved and heartened by watching it. This is one I plan to buy and add to my permanent collection, worth seeing again and again.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid morality play, November 28, 2005

By	Michael Bird (Yorba Linda, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

My daughter has raved about this for some time, I finally got around to watching it over this last holiday weekend. It's definately worth seeing, a good solid story, a bit sad, but well acted and the kind of movie that makes you think a bit.

I don't think it's something younger children would really get into, there are a bit of adult themes running through this, however older kids will be able to get the brain juices flowing and that's a good thing.

It's hard to go into the flick without giving something away, so I'll just say it's a bit of a Christology and worth seeing, there is some grown up drama shown, but it's a redemptive movie, inspite of the sad parts.