Pay It Forward (2000) on Netflix
Trevor McKinney's social studies teacher gives his class an assignment: put a plan into action that will change the world. Trevor invents pay it forward. His mother, Arlene, works two jobs.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.2/10128,443 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes39%
Trailer
Plot summary
Trevor McKinney starts seventh grade in Las Vegas, and his social studies teacher, Eugene Simonet, hands the class an assignment: put a plan into action that makes the world better. Trevor's answer is pay it forward. Whoever receives a favor does a favor for three other people rather than returning it, and the favor must be one the receiver cannot manage alone. He tries the idea out on a man living on the streets, Jerry, who needs somewhere to stay. Trevor's mother, Arlene, a recovering alcoholic, holds down two jobs, one as a cocktail waitress and one as a change attendant in a casino. Far away, the journalist Chris Chandler is handed a car, and he begins following the favors back toward their source.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Pay It Forward (2000)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Stuck on the adaptation, Dixon considered returning the money she was paid for the assignment, then hit upon the idea of starting with the reporter and tracing the events backward; Hyde liked it so much that she changed her then-unpublished novel's plot structure to mirror the film's.
- In the novel the character of Eugene Simonet was originally an African-American man named Reuben St. Clair, and the role was offered to Denzel Washington, but he turned it down to do Remember the Titans instead.
- Though the book is set in Atascadero, California, the movie initially placed the story in Tucson, Arizona, and the film production later changed the setting to Las Vegas, Nevada, to "show Las Vegas life off the Strip."
