During the movie, the story didn’t vary much from that of the book. Trevor was a 12 year old kid that had a great idea on how to change the world. He would do a favor for three people and expect nothing in return. The people that got the favor would just need to pay the favor to other people. He came up with this idea because his social studies teacher, Eugene Simmonet assigned this as an extra credit assignment. After he gives out the assignment he puts it into action. He gives money to a homeless man named Jerry. He gets some cloth and a shower and goes on a job interview. Trevor’s mom, Arlene, finds Jerry in the house and freaks out. Arlene goes to school to talk to Eugene, and that’s where they first meet.
In the movie there are plenty of parts that are related to the book. The part when Eugene explains to Arlene that his father burned his face is different than in the book. In the book he tells Arlene that he has become the way he is because he when to war in Vietnam. In the movie the reporter Chris Chandler appears to be more calm in the way he acts than in the book. In the movie he appears to be very outgoing and impatient. He travels through the whole country with more enthusiasm than he appears to be in the movie.
The acting in the movie involved great skill in recreating the characters from the movie. To start out, I thought the best actor in the movie, was Trevor. The actor grabbed the concept of Trevor being an innocent, shy kid, and put it into play. I felt that the actress, who played Arlene, did an amazing job, in showing her love towards Trevor. She was like I imagined while I was reading the book. The person that I thought would be something and turned out to be another, was Reuben. In the book, Reuben is a black person, which has burning all over his body because he is a Vietnam veteran. But in the movie, Reuben is actually called Eugene. Eugene is white, and got his body burns because his father burned him with car gas.
