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Pay It Forward Details

2000 Certificate 12
  • Rated:
  • 70
  • from 7257 members

Based on a best-selling novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde and boasting the star power of three prior Oscar winners--Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment--PAY IT FORWARD spins a heartwarming yarn about an 11-year-old boy who comes up with an utopian idea as a project for school. History teacher Eugene Simenot (Spacey) .. Read more

Starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment, Jay Mohr
Director Mimi Leder
Genres Drama

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Pay It Forward

Based on a best-selling novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde and boasting the star power of three prior Oscar winners--Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment--PAY IT FORWARD spins a heartwarming yarn about an 11-year-old boy who comes up with an utopian idea as a project for school. History teacher Eugene Simenot (Spacey) offers the same ongoing extra-credit assignment he has proffered every year: Come up with an idea that will change the world. However, he expects nothing more from his students than halfhearted efforts that fall far shy of their mark. Simenot is therefore unprepared for precocious, irrepressible Trevor McKinney (played with wide-eyed wonder by Osment), who conjures up a stunning scheme. Trevor suggests the concept that every person who benefits from someone else's good deed should "pay it forward," instead of paying it back, and in turn offer favors to three other people. The first guinea pig for Trevor's experiment is his overworked, imperfect mom (Helen Hunt) for whom he tries to find a boyfriend.
Director Mimi Leder, best known for such powerful thrillers as DEEP IMPACT, imbues the solid script of PAY IT FORWARD with a more grandiose aura. However, it is the movie's triumvirate of heralded stars--Spacey, Hunt, and Osment--that propels this compelling yarn.

Starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment, Jay Mohr, Jim Caviezel, Jon Bon Jovi, Angie Dickinson
Director Mimi Leder
Studio WARNER HOME VIDEO
Run time DVD: 1 hr 59 mins
Certificate Certificate 12
Genres Drama
Language DVD: English
Hearing-impaired Italian
Subtitles DVD: English, Romanian, Bulgarian, Arabic
Released DVD: 30 Jul 2001
Production year: 2000
Format DVD

  • Critics' reviews (3) of Pay It Forward

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  • 2 stars out of 5

    Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt co-star in a movie that conforms to the American ethos that nothing succeeds like excess. When asked to come up with a way of making the world a better place as part of a class project, schoolboy Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) concocts the notion of carrying out random acts of kindness to strangers, who then pay the favour forward to new beneficiaries rather than back to the giver. This notion attracts the attention of the media and brings together the youngster's emotionally scarred, alcoholic mum (Hunt) and physically scarred schoolteacher (Spacey), both in need of companionship. Reasonable performances in stereotyped roles sustain interest during the early part of film, but increasing sentimentality may prove hard to stomach for the more cynical viewer.

    • Radio Times
    • Posted 29 Jan 2006

  • This soft-boiled sub-Spielbergian mush is a children's film for grown-ups who never grew up. In a scurrilous bid to... read more on Time Out

    • Time Out
    • Posted 04 Nov 2008

  • Most helpful member's review of Pay It Forward

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  • 22 out of 22 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 4 stars

    Am I a wuss!?

    I am a 25 year old bloke who likes to think he is quite cool, so should I have liked this film as much as I did. I had to go straight to the pub drink lager and talk football.

    But forgetting my pride its a really nice film, well acted and an enjoyable story line.

    Oh yeah and I cried!!!!

      • russlough from Berkshire
      • Posted 21 Sep 2005 10:32

  • Most recent members' review of Pay It Forward

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  • 2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 4 stars

    Chick Flick

    Made me cry which I did not expect.I thought it would be more of a feel good movie.Kevin Spacey is excellent.

      • A customer from southwell, nottinghamshire
      • Posted 23 Mar 2005 16:44

  • News and features

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    Pay It Forward

    Bon Jovi shuns Hollywood

    • 24 Oct 2009

    Rocker Jon Bon Jovi has turned his back on Hollywood - insisting he wants "no part" of the superficial celebrity lifestyle. The Bon Jovi rocker has enjoyed movie success in films like Pay It Forward and U-571, but he has never considered turning his back on his New Jersey roots and moving to Los Angeles. He insists family like with his wife Dorothea and their four children is far more important to him than the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown. He tells the New York Post, "I know one thing. I am Read more

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Rating breakdown

7,257 Member ratings
  • 100
1,202
  • 90
856
  • 80
1,528
  • 70
1,227
  • 60
1,079
  • 50
570
  • 40
324
  • 30
218
  • 20
169
  • 10
84

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      • Based on a best-selling novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde and boasting the star power of three prior Oscar winners--Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment--PAY IT FORWARD spins a heartwarming ...