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Good Will Hunting
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by Miramax
Sales Rank: 8451
Price: $9.99
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One of the best films of the 1990s, this is one of those rare box office mega-hits that deserved all the adulation and awards it earned. Youthful stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck earned an Academy Award for their incisive, witty script. Damon plays a janitor at MIT who is an enormously gifted mathematician. Salivating professors bring the angry and troubled young man to psychiatrist Robin Williams, hoping Damon will conform enough to further his education. (Williams garnered an Academy Award for his heartfelt performance.) Director Gus Van Sant put away his more invasive camera tricks and let the story tell itself. Good thing, because this is one involving and well-acted tale. Several plot tangents, including a sweet little romance between Damon and Minnie Driver, are carefully woven into the fabric of this multilayered drama. Friendship, societal expectations, and the long reach of a damaged childhood are all portrayed with such finesse that the story never feels heavy-handed. Extraordinarily optimistic, <I> Good Will Hunting</I> is exceptional because it causes elation <i>and</i> forces you to think. <i>--Rochelle O'Gorman</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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