Three older movies about helping and/or being helped that might make a difference in your life. Don’t fear the schmaltz!
I. Pay It Forward (2000)
A novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde was the starting point for the loosely adapted film Pay It Forward. Selected quotes from the book:
There is no wrong way to perform an act of kindness.
Acts of kindness change people. Small acts of kindness change people in a small way. A big enough act of kindness can alter the course of a person’s life entirely. But, big or small, I’ve never seen it fail.
…(Y)ou don’t need much to change the entire world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingridients. You can start with the world you’ve got.
One of the taglines for the movie: It all starts with you. Another: If you can’t pay it back, pay it forward.
Pay It Forward in brief (Rotten Tomatoes): “The story of a social studies teacher who gives an assignment to his junior high school class to think of an idea to change the world for the better, then put it into action. When one young student creates a plan for ‘paying forward’ favors, he not only affects the life of his struggling single mother, but he sets in motion an unprecedented wave of human kindness which, unbeknownst to him, has blossomed into a profound national phenomenon.”
Although many critics reviewed it poorly, Pay It Forward was significantly more appreciated by general audiences.
One critic who liked the helping theme aptly concluded, “Tissues or barf bag, take your pick. Personally, I was glad I grabbed a handful of concession napkins. Judging by the chorus of sniffles, I wasn’t alone” (Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today).
II. Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
Keke Palmer plays the gifted but troubled youngest daughter, age 11, of a widowed mom (Angela Bassett). Against various odds but with healthy doses of helping from all around, she eventually finds sweet success at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. One of her “50,000 coaches” is played by Laurence Fishburne.
III. The Fundamentals of Caring (2016)
This film was adapted by Rob Burnett from a novel by Jonathan Evison. Ben (Paul Rudd) is an unemployed writer with a pending divorce who takes a brief course on caregiving and learns such “fundamentals” as the mnemonic ALOHA: Ask, Listen, Observe, Help, Ask Again. Also emphasized as important in helping careers: caregivers must prioritize taking good care of themselves.
Ben is hired by single mom (Jennifer Ehle) to work with her son Trevor (Craig Roberts), an older adolescent with muscular dystrophy and lots of snark.
The trailer previews an upcoming road trip during which the pair pick up tough-talking hitchhiker Dot (Selena Gomez). Together they go on to have such adventures as hunting down the father who long ago abandoned Trevor because of his condition.
