In persuasive writing, the term pathos is often used to denote an appeal to the emotions of the audience. Frequently such appeals are regarded as being empty of true content, just a cheap way to get people on your side without really engaging their minds. Not since Patch Adams have I seen a film as drenched in pointless pathos as Pay It Forward.
Ostensibly the film is about a young boy named Trevor (Haley Joel Osment) who is challenged by his new social studies teacher (Kevin Spacey) to change the world for extra credit. Trevor decides to start a cosmic chain letter; he'll do big favors for three people and instead of paying back the favor, they'll "pay it forward" to three others.
What the film is REALLY about is the boy's second favor, fixing up his single mother (Helen Hunt) with his teacher, a concept lifted directly from such vapid kiddie fare as The Parent Trap. But since this is a drama and not a comedy, the plot needs a few twists to be interesting for adults. So Hunt is made into an alcoholic and Spacey's character is given mysterious scars on his face. This romance then must compete for screen time with the "concept" of the movie, and the film's plot gets lost somewhere in between. This disorder seems ever more a shame when we discover that director Mimi Leder actually hoped that the film might encourage spontaneous kindness in its audiences; if that was her hope, I can't help wishing she had focused on that aspect of the film a little more.
As the two plots fight for dominance, a subplot involving a reporter (Jay Mohr) following the trail of the "pay it forward" movement arises and only adds to the confusion. His investigating leads to a series of flashbacks meant to highlight the power of the idea Trevor created, yet they instead manage to drain the life out of the concept. One of these flashbacks involves a homeless woman "paying it forward" by giving a thief a place to hide out from the cops; this is not the type of good deed Trevor had in mind when he came up with the idea. A lot of time is spent developing these short vignettes, which would have been fine if Jay Mohr's character had been the protagonist of the film, but instead all of this time only causes the movie to drag on and on without any end in sight.
Trevor himself seems to fail at his do-gooding; his first favor was to help a homeless man (James Caviezel) get a job and find a place to live, but as soon as he does, he goes back to an old drug habit. So in the end when Mohr finally catches up with Osment and we are dramatically shown the effect "pay it forward" had on the lives of people, it doesn't have a ring of truth to it. It feels forced.
Hunt and Spacey, both Academy Award winners, flex their acting muscles by filling out their roles, moving them beyond the stereotypes of scarred loner and alcoholic single mom into truly engaging characters. But poor Haley Joel Osment, who is an extremely talented young man in his own right, is left to flounder by a story that never gives him much to work with. His character is only thinly developed, mostly as an object of pity for the hardship he has to endure or, as often happens to intelligent young people, someone whose serious desire to improve the world is patronized as "cute." In all honesty, more time is spent developing Jay Mohr's character (with scenes revolving around his former job with the governor, his recent divorce, and his new girlfriend coping with his drive for success as a journalist) than with Osment, when that character should be merely secondary.
The finale, which involves the tragic death of a major character, pours on the schmaltz with overblown background music and ends up seeming designed purely to elicit an emotional response in the audience. But the plot has meandered so much at this point that we're not upset that the character is dead; we just want the movie to be over. Perhaps some folks might find the ending believable and truly sad, but for me it just felt artificial.
Pay It Forward, despite some incredible acting talent, never really unfolds properly as a story, seeming drawn out and overwrought with emotion that has little substance behind it. The tangled plot drags down any hopes this movie had of succeeding in its quest to change the world, leaving behind a legacy of disappointment instead of hope.
