There are just a handful of films that go beyond the usual senses used while watching a film. I cannot list what those films are, since everyone has a different experience with any particular film, but usually they have a moment or a scene that bypass those human traits that keep you centered and grounded in this world. It is an experience for which you can try to prepare, as you are simply watching a flickering two-dimensional image with appropriate audio playing in the background, but these films defy what you hold to be true. They reach directly into your heart and take your experience with the film to a whole other level. It is a realm occupied by your most honest emotions, and whichever the film decides to directly touch, is an experience beyond your control. It is as if the film has touched your soul.

It was four years ago today, 20-October-2004, that I think another of those rare types of films was first released for all the world to experience and enjoy. Much has been written and analyzed since "Pay It Forward" premiered. Some would call the film manipulative, others would say even worse, and yet there are far too many that experience something with this particular film, a Haley film, that goes beyond anything direct analysis can reveal. I should add that I could focus on the "Pay It Forward" concept, and the importance of the movement that continues around the world even to this day, but that is something more worthy of a fifth anniversary tribute. I want to focus on another aspect of the film, the one that is usually the next thing discussed after the idea of "Pay It Forward". Although, quite often it is the very first thing mentioned simply because of the overwhelming emotional impact.

If there are only a handful of films able to achieve such an experience, then you can probably count the number of actors on one hand that are even capable of making the experience happen. Only someone like Haley Joel Osment has the skill and the magic to make such an experience so believeable and real. Because of his talent, you cannot help yourself but care so deeply and invest so much into such a troubled character like he was a part of your family. It is only then that such moments and experiences are possible. When that moment hits, as is the case at the end of the film in "Pay It Forward", it is not just another sad scene... but a scene that rips at your soul and leaves your heart aching and the tears streaming down your face for someone that does not even exist, and yet you feel like a member of your family is gone.

Some might say that such an experience is the definition of manipulation in film, but I think if such moments were so easily achieved, then they would not be so rare. Of course many films try to create such an experience, and fail miserably, and they have then earned the lable of being manipulative. But when a film does achieve such a rare moment, then I think those definitions do not apply, as the experience should be something that is savoured regardless if the moment is happy or sad. How brilliant that a flickering two dimensional image can touch you to such great depths, with so much feeling, and can only be made possible by those with the greatest and purest of talent. The proof that such moments are real and do exist is revealed when you have the exact same experience every single time you enjoy the film. There is something so much more to a film when that happens... and four years later, the experience remains.

Thanks Haley, for every single one of those moments. You are the best.