'Forward' takes audiences down well-trodden paths

By Lyle Henretty

Daily Arts Writer

In a great film, the only time the audience will anticipate what is about to happen is when the filmmaker allows them to. In a good horror movie, this may build suspense (I know she's going to die, but when?). In a comedy, it heightens your appreciation of the running gag if you can guess where it might come up next. There are many ways a drama can successfully utilize this technique, cleverly foreshadowing how a character might react or an unspeakably tragic outcome. By letting the audience figure out parts of the film beforehand, the filmmaker can manipulate the audiences expectations and emotions.

Mimi Leder's "Pay It Forward" is a fine film - one that goes to great lengths to manipulate its audience. The manipulations, though, are not of the kind above. The script twists and turns, but it only succeeds in winding us down a well-trodden path. There is nothing wrong with this predictability, per se, but it does hold the movie back from the greatness it nearly achieves. This said, the script itself has both original and keenly funny moments.

The story centers on a physically scarred seventh grade social studies teacher (Kevin Spacey) who gives his students an assignment to change the world for the better. One student (Haley Joel Osment) takes him seriously, devising a method of helping three people, who in turn must each help three people (an they help three people, and so on, and so on, and so on). One of the lad's good deeds is hooking his overworked mother (Helen Hunt) up with the socially challenged teacher for a romantic interlude.

Whenever actors of such high caliber appear in the same film, there is always the chance that they will cannibalize each other. Leder wisely gives all of her leads ample time to develop their characters before having them interact with each other. The very recognizable cast (even the usually brash Jay Mohr) brings such nuance to their characters that they disappear inside them for the run of the film.

Spacey, who has twice won Oscars for playing empty, soulless men, is here so full of torment and pain that he is about to come apart. Spacey's Eugene Simonet is the intrinsic opposite of his cynical Lester Berman from "American Beauty." While Lester cared about nothing, Eugene attempts to save the whole world through his students. While Lester slouched in the back of his mini van, Eugene forces his students to use language to gain a better grasp of life. Yet, at the same time, Eugene admits that, emotionally, language is all he has. At one point, Hunt's character admits how much she cares for Simonet, and Simonet shudders. The shudder conveyed fear, elation, and years of pent up aggression. If Spacey can do this with a simple shake, imagine what he can do with an entire movie.

Hunt is a hard working single mom and she looks it. Her sitcom persona has vanished here. Her pretty face is haggard and her over-used eye shadow hardly covers the bags under her eyes. She could easily have let this role slip into the stereotypical poor-but-determined mothers we've seen a thousand times before, but she brings a sense of true pain and fear to the role. Her work here is far superior to that of her Oscar winning performance in "As Good As It Gets."

Osment not only holds his own in the scenes he shares with his seasoned co-stars, but also uses his face as expertly as Spacey. He proves here that "The Sixth Sense" was no fluke, and that he is one of the most gifted new actors in Hollywood. When Leder focuses the camera on his young eyes, you can watch his entire character unfold. Like Spacey and Hunt, he takes a stock character (that of a young boy smarter than the adults around him) and makes him live and breathe.

Overall, the film is excellent. It just angers me that Hollywood refuses to entertain new story ideas, and continues to recycle even the most tried and true movie clichés.

Courtesy of Warner Brothers

Helen Hunt buys her peroxide at K-Mart. But that doesn't mean she goes to State.