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Good Will Hunting
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by Walt Disney Video
Sales Rank: 20408
Price: $29.99
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Robin Williams won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck nabbed one for Best Original Screenplay, but the feel-good hit <I>Good Will Hunting</I> triumphs because of its gifted director, Gus Van Sant. The unconventional director (<I>My Own Private Idaho</I>, <I>Drugstore Cowboy</I>) saves a script marred by vanity and clunky character development by yanking soulful, touching performances out of his entire cast (amazingly, even one by Williams that's relatively schtick-free). Van Sant pulls off the equivalent of what George Cukor accomplished for women's melodrama in the '30s and '40s: He's crafted an intelligent, unabashedly emotional male weepie about men trying to find inner-wisdom.<p> Matt Damon stars as Will Hunting, a closet math genius who ignores his gift in favor of nightly boozing and fighting with South Boston buddies (co-writer Ben Affleck among them). While working as a university janitor, he solves an impossible calculus problem scribbled on a hallway blackboard and reluctantly becomes the prodigy of an arrogant MIT professor (Stellan Skarsgård). Damon only avoids prison by agreeing to see psychiatrists, all of whom he mocks or psychologically destroys until he meets his match in the professor's former childhood friend, played by Williams. Both doctor and patient are haunted by the past, and as mutual respect develops, the healing process begins. The film's beauty lies not with grand climaxes, but with small, quiet moments. Scenes such as Affleck's clumsy pep talk to Damon while they drink beer after work, or any number of therapy session between Williams and Damon offer poignant looks at the awkward ways men show affection and feeling for one another. <I>--Dave McCoy</I>
Viewer Reviews
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won an Oscar for Best Screenplay, and Robin Williams won another for Best Supporting Actor, for "Good Will Hunting," and if you watch this film, it's really not hard to see why.
Damon plays Will Hunting, a gifted but troubled young man who's worked many a low-wage job and been in one too many scrapes with the Boston Police. Affleck plays his best friend, Chuck, an average working joe who, along with two other friends, accompanies Will in all his (mis)adventures in life. Their Boston accents are absolutely flawless in this film. Will, working as a janitor at MIT, spots an incredibly difficult problem on a blackboard outside one of the lecture halls and solves it inside of a minute without breaking a sweat--he's a genius, possibly a super-genius, and we see him able to match wits even with arrogant Harvard students (as in one very amusing scene in a Cambridge bar/Harvard hangout spot) quite easily. He is spotted by Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stelland Skaarsgard), who agrees to bail Will out of jail after his most recent scrape with the law if he'll 1) work with the professor on solving some very difficult math problems and 2) see a psychiatrist to work out his problems.
Will, who grew up an orphan in and out of various foster homes, often being horribly abused, has developed a tough outer shell that makes him push everyone away who tries to get too close--he tears down each of the professor's suggested shrinks until Lambeau matches him up with Sean Kelly (Robin Williams, in the best piece of acting he's ever done), who turns out to be, in many ways, Will's soul-brother (another Southie native who had a hard childhood). He even keeps Schuyler (Minnie Driver), his girlfriend, at a distance with a tall tale about his 12 Irish Catholic brothers, even though it's clear he's quite fond of her, and she's in love with him.
The story that unfolds, while it may be somewhat cliche, is also one we can all easily recognise, having some element of our lives--the climactic scene, in which Sean finally breaks through to Will by gently reminding him that all the trouble that's befallen him in his life is not his fault never fails to get me choked up and teary-eyed. Will's story is that of a misunderstood soul trying to get through life the only way he knows how--the hard way. It takes a kindred spirit to get him to see that it doesn't have to be like that, and that he can do much better for himself. Even his blue-collar friends, none of whom has more than middling prospects in life, know he's special and want to see him succeed.
It's a great movie, and if you have a soft spot for Boston, you'll have another reason to enjoy this gem. Definitely recommended.
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Good Will Hunting
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