Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey) becomes a pawn in a field test of the plan as dinner for two is arranged with Arlene (Helen Hunt), Trevor's mother, a bit of Parent Trap business that amazingly breeds romance. The teacher is a burn victim, Mom drinks too much; he uses erudition to disarm his opponents, her frankness is corrosive to that particular defense mechanism of his. Merging these two lost souls is also Trevor's lone self-serving act, an effort to restore equilibrium to his childhood after the bitter exit of loutish father Ricki (Jon Bon Jovi).

Leslie Dixon's clunky adaptation of Catherine Ryan Hyde's novel is structured so that we are introduced to the Pay It Forward movement already a part of the public consciousness. A jaded newspaper reporter (Jay Mohr, his gift for incorrigibility muted by an undemanding part) has his car totalled at a crime scene, only to see it replaced by a kindly stranger's Jaguar moments later. From there, the scribbler takes it upon himself to retrace the origins of the cause. The execution of this subplot grows tiresome quickly and leads to a third-act development so unforeseeable (involving a tertiary character's relationship to the protagonists), it ought to be preceded by "Scene Missing" interstices.

You'll forgive me for remaining suspicious of Pay It Forward even as I (reluctantly) endorse it. It's just in my nature when a mainstream tearjerker socks it to me, never mind a movie by Leder, whose Deep Impact, while retaining a sensitive dignity for its doomed ensemble, lacked, as does Pay It Forward, narrative finesse and, to borrow from the poster for Hot Shots Part Deux, "a tidal wave of human feeling." (Though it did climax with one whopper of a tsunami.) Nearly every emotion had been pre-digested long before we arrived.

Pay It Forward plots out a smaller scale tragedy, allowing for more immediately identifiable emotional touchstones. Yes, the film is so shockingly earnest that we find ourselves questioning both during and after just how sincerely the Hollywood machine really got behind this material. And it's this kind of knee-jerk cynicism that will pepper the negative remarks in Pay It Forward's pans; watch for detractors to also hinge their criticism on the term "manipulative," which I've always thought to be the most worthless insult one can lob at a motion picture. I go to the cinema, after all, in surrender: push my buttons.

The movie belongs to its lead players. Spacey typically acclimates his brand name self-satisfaction to whatever role he chooses, but here gives up that smug ghost to reveal untold powers of brooding angst. As the tortured Simonet, in fact, Spacey seems to have borrowed a page from Osment's book when he's in innocent observer mode, while Spacey's knack for elevating mediocre dialogue may have rubbed off on his co-star in return. They have a crackling rapport together, and individually with Helen Hunt. Unfortunately, Hunt's innate intelligence betrays Arlene, discrediting the character's frequently boneheaded decisions.

If this review has yet to sound overwhelmingly positive about anything, that's because I'm hesitant to spoil what I perhaps most enjoyed about Pay It Forward: its brave, allegorical conclusion. I am haunted by the closing shot, an aerial view which sees the garish razzle-dazzle of Las Vegas as an unwitting participant in a candlelight vigil. In the events working up to this close, the film unveils itself as something deeper than a high-concept, neo-Capra fable--Pay It Forward is optimistic, not delusional: Leder and company know that it would take a lot more than a starry-eyed kid to turn man's inhumanity to man right around. That doesn't mean Trevor can't change lives, and he may touch yours. Gutsy when it's not glossy, Pay It Forward is a life-affirming piece of crap.-Bill Chambers