watched this with our 9 & 11 yr olds. 9 year old prob a bit young. had lots of questions about why does everyone drink in it; the way the film runs 2 parallel stories (trevor & the pay it forward story lines) was a bit lost on him. the stabbing upset him good bit, so in hindsight, was probably a too mature for him; talked about the pay it forward concept afterwards with him to try and lighten the mood for him. good movie. love the concept.

Rebecca Varberg Professor Jossart English 110 November 7, 2011 Pay It Forward The world is a large place with millions of different kinds of people. Some are good and some not so much. Sure chances of changing the world are pretty slim, but what if one person tried. If that one person was successful in helping someone else and it then caused that person to help other people, maybe changing the world would be possible. Could this be realistic or will people just remain the same as they are today? A young boy, Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment), who is troubled by his alcoholic mother, Arlene McKinney (Helen Hunt), and fears his abusive absent father, Ricky McKinney (Jon Bon Jovi), is working on his social studies assignment. This assignment is extra credit and asks the students to think of something to change the world and put it into action. Trevor comes up with the plan to do a favor for three people in need, but instead of those people returning the favor back to him, they pay the favor forward to three different people in need and it keeps building from there. The people that Trevor picked were a drug addicted homeless man, Jerry (Jim Caviezed), his emotionally scarred and burned social studies teacher, Mr. Simonet (Kevin Spacey), and a class mate that was always being bullied, Adam (Marc Donato). Trevor doesn’t think that his three people paid the favor forward, so he believes his project was a complete failure. Although throughout the movie you see that reporter, Chris Chandler (Joy Mohr), is slowly tracing this successful story back to Trevor. Trevor would not be able to see much of his accomplishment with this project because at the end of the movie, Trevor dies by being stabbed by another student, who is bullying Adam. This movie is the perfect example of how a movie should be; it makes you laugh, cry a lot, and it is something that stays in your heart and keeps you thinking for weeks afterwards. This movie seems realistic when it comes to the problems faced by people in everyday life. These real life problems that affect everyday people are alcoholism, divorce, drug addictions, child abuse, and so much more. If you were to go into any classroom and talk to ten to twenty students, you would probably find students that are facing these problems at home. This is an extremely horrible thing that children have to deal with and I think that people sometimes just look the other way and try to ignore it. Movies like this will hopefully open people’s eyes and they will learn that they can do something to help. This movie shows that it takes one person to start a movement to change someone’s life for the better. The part of the movie that was unrealistic is changing the world. Yes, one person can make a difference, but they cannot change the word. The movie shows that Trevor’s plan to “Pay It Forward” works, but it is a movie. In real life, I could not picture people doing the favors that were done in this movie, for example the first favor you see is someone giving away their Jaguar car to the reporter, after the reporter’s car is damaged. It would be wonderful if “Pay It Forward” could happen, but it is highly implausible. The world would be a beautiful place if only people would be willing to help each other and not expect a favor back. I never heard of this movie before, up until a couple weeks ago when a friend came over and suggested we watch the movie. I now would recommend everyone to watch it. It may not have the happiest ending, but it shows that one person can make a difference no matter what their age. Some one that is in their teens could impact the world just as much, if not more, than someone in there fifties.

Justice to one person can have an impact on not only the individual but on the world in ways unimaginable. It is the chain reaction of treating others with dignity and love. However, as positive as the message it, it is couched in horrible language, drugs and alcohol, sex outside of marriage as a norm. The strip bar scene at the start should be enough for any parent/educator to realize this is not meant for children and highly cautioned against teenagers. The violence (description of parental abuse and school bullying) is understandable as closely tied to the plot. Nonetheless, the positive message of kindness to another is wonderful, just not worth showing children.