Touching and bittersweet.

This is a totally objective review. This wasn't great, fantastic moviemaking but it wasn't as bad as these critics are saying. Yes, it was a little manipulative-I can't think of a movie that wasn't. That kind of is a movie's job, it's called setting the scene. The real reason the critics ripped this movie is because they collectively don't like Helen Hunt and they knew that with an honest reveiw she likely would have gotten another Oscar nomination, so they made sure that wouldn't happen. Don't believe the hype!!… Expand

Beautiful.

Not quite as good as the book, but the acting was fantastic.

Sorry for the translation With the permission of the director, Mimi Leder, enter Class Trevor, as auditors of course. The lesson has already begun. ……… You see I am here for you every day, so I expect you to be there for me. On time without excuses. Now… This is a course, Social Studies, which you and the world. Yes, there is a world out there and even if you decide not to want to meet, however, will hit you straight in the face. Believe me. So, you better start thinking about the world now, what does it mean for you. That means the world to everyone. Courage, I want a class that participates here. It 's just from this room that want to pull you out from your home, on your street? None of you wants to go further? (A student) In stores, only 3 kilometers from my house. Oh well, I will tell you another question. How to think about things that happen outside of this city? Watch the news? Yes ... no. Well we are not global thinkers, but why do not we? Trevor: Because we have eleven. Just relief. Your name? Trevor. Maybe Trevor is absolutely right, why should we think about the world, after all what the world expects from us. Trevor: Expect ...? What the world expects from you. Trevor: Nothing! Nothing! My God, boys and girls are absolutely right. Nothing! Yes, here you are. You can’t drive, vote, you can’t even go to the bathroom without permission from me. Nothing! My God, boys and girls are absolutely right. Nothing! You are stuck. Right here, in seventh grade. ... But not forever. ... Because one day you will be free! (Applause) But what if the day on which you are free you are not prepared, you are not ready; Yet you look around ... and you do not like the world is. And ... if the world is a huge disappointment ... ...? We're screwed! Unless ... unless you take the things you do not like this world and end up making them beat off the ground buttocks. Do not tell your parentes that I used that word. And you can start doing today. This is your task. You. . . Rate and applies throughout the year. And you can start doing today. (boys) It 's so ... weird, crazy, dull, tedious. Funny, crazy, dull, tedious. How about you .... And 'possible. The realm of possibilities exist. Where? In each of you! Here! (Indicating his head). So you can do it, you can surprise us. It is up to you or you can starvene impaled, and let it atrophy. Thank you, Mimi Leder and go away from class. There are teachers who just bore you to look at them, then start talking when the focus reaches historic low. Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey) is not one of these for two reasons. The first. It 'a connoisseur of the human mind, than that of boys in particular. Establishing meaningful relationships, knows how to stimulate them, how to capture their attention as they move through the emotional maze. Well, not so much to teach .... (In Italian: Insomma, non insegna tanto per… .) The second. He had two masters "senators" The Book and the Life. With the former has always had a good relationship, is a thinker, he enjoys playing with words and writing. Second, it has molded in body and soul. On your body the time past, that of adolescence, has left deep furrows and devastating. But his life has become too orderly, even his moods are sorted. Every feeling has its boxes, tightly closed. Disordered for 'Chemical' is Arlene McKinney (Helen Hunt), his disorder resulting from the use of the liquid light / dark called alcohol. Liar knows how to be an alcoholic, lives with her son Trevor (Haley Joel Osment) in a working-class neighborhood of Las Vegas, singles, first communicated with his mother and then with her husband only by the bottle. Working in a strip club and a casino night, day changers. Bottles hidden everywhere. Life with You, is playing a difficult game and not want to miss. There is still something I do not want to lose the most precious, his son. He knows that she could not deceive. Trevor, eleven, despite his age, he learned too early to "live alone". Trevor loves his mother more than himself, knows his state of physical and mental health, knows that alone will never be able to write one new page and beautiful in the book of life. Is not one to abandon the game. No longer wish to live in balance. It 'tough, thoughtful, and it takes everything seriously. The deeply meditating on the work proposed by the teacher in class one morning when Simonet offers ... Think of an idea to change our world – and put it into ACTION! A Trevor do not need more than this, input, a meaningful input. In fact, while back home ...... Let's sit down and follow Trevor. There is much to learn. Good Ciak!… Expand

The movie is what it is; don't expect Dostoevsky! Good acting, terrible ending, but a pretty neat idea, eh? I'm trying to do one or two "random acts of kindness" every day. But, hey, I used to be a boy scout, and I don't drink or smoke...you have been warned. Love your website which I just discovered today and will visit often. Thanks and congrats!

First up, I have no idea what James B is talking about, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with this film. Second up...I hate it when people complain about movies that "manipulate the audience". All movies - all good movies - manipulate the audience. A bad movie is one that doesn't provoke any reaction whatsoever. (Also, people keep saying it about genuinely moving films such as ET, apropos of nothing, but that's another story). But here comes "Pay It Forward", which doesn't manipulate the audience so much as make balloon animals out of them. That I give it yellow rather than red is down to four individuals: the Space, HJO and Helen Hunt, all of whom give brilliant performances, all of whom are completely wasted on the material (cf the big scene between the Space and Hunt seven minutes before the end - people talk like that now?). The fourth is Mimi Leder, a talented director, who wastes one of her best days at work on a screenplay that's predictable and irritating in roughly equal measure - and then infuriating right at the end. Now, despite the fact I wouldn't wish this script on anyone, I don't want to spoil it, so I won't. But that they did THAT to THAT particular character, just so they can have that song and that bloody long-distance shot ending and that whole final five minutes is just wrong. Like the CGI deiscated kid in Beyond Borders, who was just window dressing for the romance between Clive Owen and Angelina Jolie's Lips. So on balance, I've changed my mind - it's getting red anyway. And if the book has the same ending, I ent reading it. What a waste.… Expand

It is hard to disagree with most of the hard knocks given to this movie, but I think it is strange that There Goes My Baby or Apocalypse Now are not considered manipulative or contrived by these same critics. Die Hard isn't a mendacious hunk of blubber and sentiment? Oh, yes, you guys think Ayn Rand is a philosopher AND a good novelist. Well, you would-be John Galts should check out what that hardbitten Nora Ephron has to say about your little phony idol. Pay It Forward is simplistic, and so on, but no worse than that familiar old Spencer/Hayek/Friedman/ Rand song and dance that so mists the eyes of the corporate "revolutionaries." The trouble is, concerning both, that the factitious is easy to spot in entertainment, and not so easy to recognize in current world affairs. Now eat all your market savvy!… Expand

Although containing good performances and actors, "Pay It Forward" is fragmented to the point that it breaks and the ending has no meaning and is completely out of place.

This movie had great potential. Why did they have to throw it all away on this terrible writing! The plot is fine, the message is great but the movie falls into a world of terrible writing. Spacey was, well what do you expect, great! Hunt was good at times but soemtimes pretty bad. Now ladies and gentlemen, Haley Joel Osment was great! He is one of the great young actors working today! He has never played a tough kid which he should try doing. He has real potential. I hope he doesn't throw it away.… Expand

Starting with a noble core premise, this movie proceeded to make me want to hurl.

Touching, inspiring, filled with amazing performances. Excellent direction and script. Pulls off a stunningly bravado ending with guts.

Beware of pyramid schemes!!