OK back to the movie reviews and this one is on the drama film Good Will Hunting starring Matt Damon, which he co-wrote with Ben Affleck, and was a critical success at the time of release back in 1997. So let's flick the pages super quick and have a look at this drama..
Right plot: the film starts with a young man, Will Hunting (Matt Damon) who works as a janitor at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT for short) and he has a genius level intellect as well as a photographic memory. Will himself lives in South Boston and spends his spare with his friends, Chuckie (Ben Affleck), Billy (Cole Hauser) and Morgan (Casey Affleck, Ben's younger brother) and Will himself is an orphan who grew up in a rough neighbourhood and was a victim of domestic abuse as a child. Will also has a history of prior convictions of assault and theft, and he ends up running into trouble with the police as he assaulted a man who bullied him as a kid, and is faced with incarceration. At MIT Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgaard) sets a complex mathematical theory for his class to solve, and one night while working on his duties, Will solves the theory. Lambeau the next day is stunned to find the solution is correct and eventually comes across Will solving another problem which Lambeau had posted on a blackboard, but Will quickly walks away embarrassed as Lambeau calls on him. Later on Will out with his friends meets an English student, Skylar (Minnie Driver) at a bar who is studying at Harvard, as Will impresses her with his intellect as he puts an arrogant student who shows off his knowledge infront of Chuckie, and soon after they start dating.
In the meantime Lambeau sets about finding who Will is and meets with him offering a chance to forgo his potential prison time so he can work with him on mathematic theory and also see a therapist, which Will reluctantly agrees to. Will impresses Lambeau with his incredible ability to solve complex theorems but he proves to be quite defensive towards the therapists, which he treats with contempt and they refuse to work with him. Lambeau then decides to call on his old college roommate, Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) who now teaches psychology and he himself was a former counsellor, to help him with Will, Sean himself also is from South Boston just like Will. On their first meeting Will again proves difficult and evasive with Sean and Will makes an off colour remark about Sean "married the wrong woman" which angers Sean, but he still agrees to continue working with Will. On their next meeting Sean puts Will in his place as he tells him, that despite his incredible genius that he is just a kid with no real experience of the outside world and that he afraid to let himself open up. Will eventually after a couple of meetings does open up and he shares with Sean how he is dating Skylar and Sean speaks of the memories of his wife who died of cancer. Will continues dating Skylar and things go well but he refuses to let her in and he lies to her about his past and that he is an orphan. Later on Skylar has a row with Will as she asks him to go to California with her, but Will who is afraid of making such a big chance in his life becomes panicked and defensive and when Skylar challenges him about his past, Will angrily tells her the truth of his past and that he doesn't love her and he walks out.
Meanwhile Lambeau insists on setting up job interviews for Will so that he can put his mathematical talents to work, but Sean feels that Will is not ready for that yet. Will himself refuses to turn up for the arranged job interviews and on one occassion even sends Chuckie to an interview, and he also angrily walks out on Lambeau as he feels the math they work on is a waste of time. Sean during one of their sessions gets annoyed with Will as he points out that he continues to keep seeing the negatives to every possibility and that he is afraid to move on with life and he asks him what he wants to do with his life, but Will refuses to give an honest answer, so Sean tells him to leave. As the film leads to its end Will has to face making a decisions about his future while trying to reconcile his troubled past.
Good Will Hunting was a commercial and critical success on its release and its easy to see why as it remains a very entertaining, dramatic and poignant drama about a young man trying to come to terms with his talent and his past. The screenplay was written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, which later won an Oscar for been original screenplay, and the story was actually originally supposed to be a thriller, where Will was targetted by the FBI to become a G-man, however this idea was dropped in favour of the relationship between Will and his therapist. And its this relationship which is at the heart of the film as both Will and Sean are from the same neighbourhood and they were both victims of abuse as children, and together they both learn from one another, as Sean confronts Will about his defensive behaviour and Will confronts Sean about how he has not moved on after his wife's death.
And what makes the film work so well is of course its performances which are great, starting with Matt Damon as Will, and while Will's character is somewhat obnoxious and cocky at first, Matt does a great job in taking the petulant Will and turning him into a young guy who is ready to face his demons. Damon as Will also has some great lines of dialogue especially as Will likes to rattle off facts and recite from books word for word. One of Will's best lines comes from when he is meeting with one of therapists and he says "do you find it hard to hide the fact that your gay???" to which the bemused therapist asks "What??" and Will says "Hey I don't have a problem with it, I don't care if you put from the rough!". One of Will's most memorable scenes is of course the scene where he sits in at an interview for a job with the NSA and they ask why should he work for them and he launches into a long spiel as to why he won't, which cuts to him reciting the spiel to Sean during a session. Also after the scene where he puts down a cocky Harvard student and he gets Skylar's phone number he finds the student at a local cafe chatting to other students, and he knocks the window and says "Do you like apples??" he slams a napkin with Skylar's number on it to the window "well I got her number! How do you like them apples?!". Damon's two best dramatic scenes in the film also come when Skylar confronts him over lying about his past, and also when Sean finally get's Will to face and deal with the abuse he suffered in the past, and he breaks down sobbing and embraces Sean.
Which brings me onto Robin Williams who is excellent as Sean Maguire, the therapist who tries to succeed in getting through to Will, and Williams plays Sean simply as a decent man who in the past has also had his share of pain, as he lost his wife to cancer and also came from a violent upbringing in Boston. Williams also used his own comedic skills to bring some additional humour to the role as he improvised some of the scenes in the film, which includes where he tells the story about how his wife used to fart when she was nervus and "one night it was so loud it woke the dog up!". Williams best scenes in the film include when he meets with Will on the park bench and he puts Will in his place by saying "I can't read about you or learn about you from some fuckin book! Unless you wan't to talk about you". Also later on when Sean has a session with Will and he grows tired of his bullshit as he asks Will what he wants to do with his life, and Will flippantly replies "I wanna be a shepherd". But Sean continues to push Will for a straight answer but for once he's at a loss for words, to which Sean looks at him and says "you and your bullshit, you've got a bullshit answer for everyone, but I ask you a simple question and you can't give me a straight answer, because you don't know". Also in the scene where he makes the final breakthrough and he get's Will to accept and face the pain of his past by repeatedly saying "its not your fault" over and over, until Will breaks down in tears.
Minnie Driver also gives a fine performance as Skylar, who for me is probably one of the most appealing female characters in any film, as Skylar comes across as being so fun, down to earth and likeable (as well as pretty nice!). Minnie also get's a funny scene where she tells Will and his friends a dirty joke about an old Irish couple, whom the Irish wife gives her husband a blow job. Her scene with Matt where Skylar and Will argue is also another highlight and is played really well by them both. Ben Affleck also delivers a fine performance as Chuckie, Will's best friend, and he shares a good scene with Matt when Will and Chuckie are working at a construction site and Will intends to stay in Boston for the rest of his life, but Chuckie insists that Will is wasting his time hanging around. Affleck also get's some good lines especially when he keeps putting down his younger brother Casey Affleck's character, Morgan, who asks for his cheesburger, and he says "well tell you what we'll establish a line of credit and we'll put your burger layaway!". And later on he chastises Morgan to jerking off in his mum's room while watching pornos and he says "if you are in my mom's room again watching pornos I'm gonna give you a fuckin beating!".
And finally I will mention Stellan Skarsgaard who is also excellent as Professor Lambeau who finds Will solve his complex theory and he takes him under his wing to develop his skills. Stellan also has some good scenes with Williams as Sean and Lambeau argue with one another over how they should deal with Will, as Lambeau insists on pushing Will to utilise his intellect in mathematics rather than give him breathing room to let Will work out what he wants.
As for the film's direction Gus Van Sant is at the helm and he does an excellent job with the film, as he provides a fine visual sense to the film and keeps the pace, the drama and the humour moving along nicely. Damon and Affleck both suggested Van Sant as the director after other choices were passed on and even Kevin Smith, their friend (and director of Clerks et al) passed. And lastly there is the music soundtrack scored by Danny Elfman which is really good and has quite a few poignant tracks which work really well, and the film also makes use of a few tracks of the late musician Elliott Smith,
Soooo that's it for my look at Good Will Hunting, which is well worth checking out if you like a bit of drama and comedy, or dramedy.
And finally I will leave it there!
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