Movie on a mission

>> Pay it Forward takes moralizing to new depths

by MARK SLUTSKY

Beware the Hollywood movie that aims to change the world. The air of self-importance that Pay it Forward--the new film by Mimi Leder (Deep Impact)--exudes is so thick it hits the viewer like a noxious stench. So determined to make an impact with its condescending "message" of brotherly love, so desperate to wring tears from its helpless audience, the only reasonable response to the movie's countless platitudes and allegedly dramatic moments is disgust.

Pay it Forward stars some supposedly good actors, though you wouldn't know it. Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) is an earnest little kid and Helen Hunt (an Oscar-winner, incredibly) plays his hard-working alcoholic mom. Finally, the much-laurelled Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey plays Osment's Social Studies teacher, a man whose outer scars reflect the wounded soul within. Seriously.

As the movie opens, new teacher Spacey gives his students an assignment--to figure out a way to change the world and to act on it. The saintly Osment takes this very seriously and devises the titular scheme--to do a very big favour for three people and to ask them to "pay it forward," to help out three other people and so on. One of Osment's good deeds is to set up Hunt with Spacey and what happens next bears a striking similarity to the romantic plot point in As Good As it Gets. Once again, Hunt is the embattled-but-loving working-class single mom who dares to love the wounded man who pushes her away. All sorts of clumsy dramatic grappling ensues, as "Pay it Forward" changes everybody's lives and presu-mably ends all war, corruption and sin in general.

There's a whole lot wrong with this movie. Let's address the most basic problem first: the drama in Pay it Forward is hopelessly melodramatic and confused. There's a scene early in the film where Hunt and Spacey get into an argument so poorly written it's impossible to tell what the hell they're shouting about. Furthermore, this supposedly "noble" movie is littered with gratuitous product placement. And as a final insult, the movie ends with a sequence transparently calculated to make the viewer cry--you just can't take this stuff seriously. Pay it Forward is the kind of movie that wants to make you feel bad for not liking it. You'll probably feel bad enough just seeing it. :

Pay it Forward opens Friday, Oct. 20