Good Will Hunting

Matt Damon does a wonderful job with the title role, although at times he seems a little wooden. As the therapist with a painful history that Will eventually connects with, Robin Williams turns in one of his less flamboyant performances. His suffering is palpable, and his need to save Will from himself lends real passion to the film. Affleck provides solid balance as Will's friend Chuckie, although his performance is less memorable than the other two, more of a function of the role than the actor. Minnie Driver is charming and believable as Will's new girlfriend Skylar.

The screenplay is intelligent and skillfully developed despite some unbelievable facets of the premise, most notably that such a wounded individual, no matter how bright, would have the discipline to teach himself as much as Will knows. Still, this movie only gets better as it progresses. The relationship between Will and his therapist is dynamic, poignant, and meaningful.

This is a good film to own, as it uncovers additional subtleties on second viewing, as long as you don't mind revisiting emotional angst. Its feel-good story arc is somewhat predictable, but the dialogue and interactions are not, making this flick surprisingly complex given the young ages of Damon and Affleck when it was made.


Good film crafting   May 8, 2000
Anthony Hinde (Sydney, Australia)
34 out of 49 found this review helpful

There were few films in 1997 that enjoyed more publicity than Good Will Hunting. Most of the hype centered on the two tyro actors who penned the screenplay. It seems that they had been friends for years and in between college obligations, drinking and socialising, they had been toying with a script on the side. What started out as a rather average comedy, soon evolved into a sophisticated drama. In fact, it could hardly avoid getting better as Matt Damon and Ben Affleck must have received a ton of brutal criticism from every Hollywood executive that they approached.

The true miracle is not that two actors, unknown for writing, could get a script accepted in Hollywood but that the script was so good that it put every other effort for the year in the shade. In my opinion, the motion picture academy was correct in awarding the Oscar for best screenplay to Good Will Hunting. Everything about the script suggested writers with a profound understanding of the human condition; even now I half suspect there was an element of that old saying about an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters.

For those interested in this Cinderella story within a movie, you should listen to the director's track on the DVD. It offers a unique insight into the background of the writing and filming of Good Will Hunting. It becomes clear from Ben and Matt's reminiscences that they had a ball during every part of the process. Not only that, they took advantage of their opportunity, to offer support roles to friends and family; a situation that rarely occurs outside of independent film. Surprisingly, one of the best support performances was produced by Casey Affleck, who is Ben's cousin, (I think).

The script took a bit of a risk by making the main character a super-genius. Not only is it difficult to portray a person with such talents but it is nearly impossible to do so while making him likeable. After all, the tall poppy syndrome is strongest when it comes to intellect. We can all aspire to wealth and with plastic surgery, even beauty is not unattainable but the brains you are born with is the most you're ever going to have. However, Matt Damon proved me wrong on both counts.

Will Hunting was undeniably bright. The scene in the Harvard bar were he takes on an educational supremacist is worth watching again and again just for the superb timing that was employed. Will also manages to win our sympathy despite his I.Q. Not so much because he acts like "one of the boys" but because we discover early on that for every blessing he received in the brain department, he was given a matching curse in his life. An orphan who was raised by a series of abusing foster parents is unlikely to have much room left for pride.

The catalyst which helps Will break out of his life is Gerald Lambeau, (Stellan Skarsgard). He is an award winning mathematician and professor at MIT where Will works as a janitor. Their paths cross when Will off-handedly solves a difficult maths problem which Lambeau had set for his post graduate class. But whilst there relationship is important, it is little more than a subplot; a segue toward Will's eventual meeting with Sean Maguire, a psychiatrist played by Robin Williams.

Sean is invited by Lambeau to work with Will. The two are old friends but even so, Sean was only approached after four other therapists had been run off by Will's destructive insights and bitter insults. Sean is a bird of a different feather however. He shares a common background with Will, and if anything, he has had more pain in his life than Will may ever see. In a strange way, Sean becomes Will's mother to Lambeau's role as ambitious father.

The film is rich with detail and is a wonderful medium for the support actors. Ben Affleck's role as Will's best friend is not as visible as Matt Damon's but he carries it off with just the right amount of fatalism and aggression. Will's Lady friend Skylar, is also worth special mention. Minnie Driver takes a seemingly token "love interest" role and breaths real depth into it. Without her efforts, Will's final choice would not have rung true and might have marred the whole film.

Good Will Hunting is a tribute to the dreams of American youth. Both because two young men managed to reach the pinnacle of their craft on their first outing but more importantly, because it deals with one young man's struggle to overcome his troublesome past while reaching out to grasp life, love and happiness. It's touching, entertaining and at the same time inspirational.


Good Will Hunting >>FAILS<< to be genuine.   December 5, 1999
Godfrey T. Degamo (Boston, MA USA)
30 out of 90 found this review helpful

I have problems enjoying this movie. In fact I hated it. That is why it troubles me to see so many good reviews. Because of the word limitation I will not be able to clearly elucidate all my dislikes for this movie.

but, here goes...

1. The story line is trite and predictable.

2. Though the story line is unoriginal, we see Will admonishing a Harvard student for being unoriginal.

3. Using Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of United States' as a source for history is puzzling at best. If anyone has read this book, one will find obvious one-sided arguments that one can figure out in just the language *itself* without knowing any history. Zinn admits to its one sidedness and gives his reasons. Did the writers actually read this book?

4. The depiction of Will Hunting as a mathematical genius the likes of Ramanujan without any effort is a joke. Ramanujan, Gauss, Archimedes, Newton, Mozart, Bach, Durer, da Vinci, and every genius put enormous efforts in their works and have thus been called geniuses.

5. If Will is such a great genius, then why couldn't the audience see his works? Could it have been as deep as the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra, or insightful as Euler's discovery of e? Or as profound as the discovery/invention of non-euclidean geometry? If Will was on par as the disoverers of these mathematical ideas, then how can you separate the man from his brilliant mind?

6. The development of the relationships in this movie is best described as being 'convenient'. That is to say, there is no development. I had the impression that the writers have not lived enough to flesh any details in this department. In fact, I could not ignore this thought; that is why it was no surprise to me that the parents of Will's girlfriend were killed in a fire. This way, the writers could 'conveniently' avoid fleshing this detail.

7. Contrived psychotherapy. Repeated saying that 'it not your fault' can actually help? This is almost as far fetched as Will being a math genius.

8. Science is a hard subject. What a slap in the face of the practiioners of science to treat mathematics and Organic Chemistry as trivial.

9. Will is a smart boy, but he's a baaad boy. Is this every girls' dream? An exciting 'dangerous' man but can fill her curiousity about Boltzmann's statistical mechanics. Now only if Will could develop his psychic and telekinetic skills, then I'd be really impressed! It makes you wonder about Damon who insisted he play the part of this dreamboat.

10. I don't see this movie as an accurate portrayal of Boston. If so, I'd think I'd move back to New York.

11. 'But I love you scene' was so terribly funny. Will goes out with a girl for a few dates and now she is in love with him. Is this realistic? A girl falls in love with a foul mouth janitor? It is hard to suspend my disbelief for a movie that presents itself as serious.

Perhaps that's my problem? I take this movie too seriously. Maybe this movie is suppose to horribly bad like a cheesy horror flick. I'm suppose to laugh at the unrealism as I would someone getting his head chopped off?

How can I address the great love people have for a movie I hated? I've talked to those in Boston who have liked this movie and the answers were rather disappointing: 'I like the shots of the T (subway)' 'It was neat to see Boston on the movie screen.'

Finally, I came to an answer that I could accept. When I asked a thoughtful person why he liked it, he told me that the movie sucked, but he felt an emotional attachment to Will.

So maybe, just maybe, the acting was not so bad.


GRITTY, STIRRING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING DRAMA   May 9, 2004
Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout)
30 out of 34 found this review helpful

As close as a film comes to thrilling, moving, complete entertainment.

The taut screenplay keeps you riveted as events unfold. Despite it's straightforward thematic backbone, Good Will Hunting does an impressive job playing out complex emotional negotiations between lover and friend, eager professional mentor and unwilling father figure, with the bitterness any hardworking career academic like the professor must inevitably feel in the face of a genetic miracle who'd rather chase girls than gunk around with theorems and formulas.

On the negative side, some characters may come across as cardboard (an arrogant MIT professor; a humble-by-choice psychologist who turns out to be The Most Effective; an unsung math prodigy from the wrong side of Boston who never really saw the face of school but can recite page numbers from economics books; etc) but all of it is executed with such magnificent grace, style and heartfelt emotional realism that it has moved me every single time I have watched it (5 times).

Special mention for the fabulous cameos from Robin Williams in a rare subdued but effective performance sans his usual comedic histrionics, and Minnie Driver, who is simply stunning in her role as Mr. Precocious' love interest.

The DVD has some neat special features including interviews with the director and some interesting outtakes. This one's a keeper.


"What's with everyone saying that I owe it to myself?   March 11, 2003
Steven Y. (Marvel Universe 616)
22 out of 31 found this review helpful

Genius is a fleeting thing. As Gus Van Sant's "Good Will Hunting" shows, one can dedicate his entire life to mastering an academic discipline . . . only to be one-upped by the janitor. Matt Damon made his cinematic break-through portraying Will Hunting, the MIT janitor who is a master of mathematics but a basket case in the more personal aspects of life. He is the janitor at MIT who catches the eye of Professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) who sees the unlimited potential in Hunting even if Hunting himself can't see it. Yet, the trauma of Hunting's life has taken its toll on the boy and Lambeau hopes counseling by his old college roommate, Sean McGuire (Robin Williams) can help undo the psychological damage. Supported by Skylar (Minnie Driver), a Harvard student, and his best friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck), Hunting begins to make strides and come to grips with his past.

"Good Will Hunting" basically came out of nowhere in 1997 and captured the imagination of the viewing public. It was a reminder that solid films could still be made without $100 million budgets. It was also the film that made both Damon and Affleck household names, won Robin Williams his first Oscar, and gave director Gus Van Sant (of "Drugstore Cowboy" and "To Die For" fame) his first major commercial success. It was a straightforward character study fueled by strong individual performances and clever dialogue which emulated films of an earlier era that reveled in its simplicity and not its bombast. "Good Will Hunting" will never be mistaken for a Hollywood epic but it still endears as a little cinematic gem from the 1990's.