Pay It Forward

Director Mimi Leder's manipulatively mawkish emotional tearjerker stars Haley Joel Osment as a 7th grader challenged by his physically scarred and emotionally bottled-up social studies teacher (the peerless Kevin Spacey) to "think of an idea to change our world and put it into action." Osment divines a cascading system of good deeds that requires any recipient to "pay it forward" to three other people--unwittingly beginning a cultural movement. Meanwhile, one of his random acts of kindness is to hook up the teacher with his recovering boozer mom (Helen Hunt). Significant story and character details are skimmed over to save time, resulting in a hollow, artificial-feeling atmosphere, and despite strong performances, the film ultimately feels too pandering and contrived (especially the heartbreaking finale) to have much credibility. Not a necessary purchase. (R. Blackwelder)