An interesting debate has recently sprung up among moviegoers and critics alike: How goody-goody can a movie be without turning off too many patrons? With the release of Mimi Leder's new film, Pay it Forward, this question has encountered a surprising variety of responses.

Taking a sharp turn from her last film, Deep Impact, Leder now gives a much more optimistic view for audiences to take in. Haley Joel Osment plays Trevor McKinney, a Las Vegas middle schooler who poignantly observes that life is crap: he rarely sees his mother, Arlene (Helen Hunt), who must work two jobs in order to make ends meet, all the while battling alcoholism. Whenever his estranged father (Jon Bon Jovi) blows into town, he eventually persuades Arlene to drink with him, turning him into a domestically violent lout.

His middle school is threatened by gangs who sneak weapons past the metal detectors. In this light, it seems no small surprise that Trevor gratefully springs into action at the suggestion of his new teacher (Kevin Spacey) to make the world a better place. Though this year-long assignment is purely for extra credit, Trevor devises the most original and thought-provoking idea that his teacher has ever heard: He will help three people improve their lives (which they can not do without help). In return for this favor, each of those three must pass the favor on to three other individuals, i.e. pay it forward.

At first the movie approaches this idea in a rather light-hearted playful manner. Spacey's character, Mr. Simonet, is so dry to his students that at first he came close to equaling Ben Stein's character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Trevor's bleach-blond, overly-mascaraed mother projects such a distracted and uninformed air that one can't help but laugh, especially during her first flustered meeting with Simonet. And Trevor's first scenes with his first project, a scruffy homeless man, engage the audience because of the unlikely pairing, mostly as the two sit side by side in silence eating Captain Crunch.

Of course the clip of the movie eventually slows down, unfortunately to a crawl at times. Simonet, burned in some unknown incident, is attracted to Arlene McKinney, but doesn't allow himself to open up, even for her. Trevor finds all of his projects failing, including that of setting up his teacher and mother, and begins to believe that the entire world really is that screwed up. At one point he tells Simonet that he didn't really care about the results of his experiment, he just wanted to see if the world really was that bad.

At about this time, viewers begin to recognize older characters asserting themselves through these. Though the three main actors are known for pulling off great performances, their characters in Pay It Forward begin to seem partially repeated from previous films. Hunt's character seems a mesh of her down-on-her-luck single mother from As Good as it Gets and Julia Robertsı Erin Brokovich. Spacey's jaded nature reminds one of Verbal Kint from The Usual Suspects, while the overall feel of his character being a grown man just learning how to live again is like American Beauty. Osment gives a tremendous performance, though it seems to be the same as his from The Sixth Sense. When he stares at Simonet with eyes puffy from crying, pleading with him not to give up on him, I immediately paralleled it with the infamous "Don't fail me" speech he gives to Bruce Willis.

Luckily, the actual plot of the movie saves the actors from regressing too far into past selves. In addition to focusing on other various plot lines, one including a bribing reporter (Jay Mohr) trying to track the origin of this movement, Pay it Forward is an overall pleasant ride. Plenty of twists exist in the plot to keep viewers interested and all the actors encompass their roles well (originality not included in this factor). But the sappy nature of the film does detract from the total feeling presented to audiences. I feel that the American public is far too cynical and pessimistic to fully enjoy this love-fest. However, the movie leaves audiences with a surprise twist concerning one of Trevor's failed attempts that does not provide a "happily ever after" ending. Perhaps this was the filmıs half-hearted attempt to avoid "goody-goody" status.

Pay It Forward

*** 1/2 (out of four)

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment, Jay Mohr

Written by Leslie Dixon

Directed by Mimi Leder

Warner Brothers, Rated PG-13