Good Will Hunting [DVD + Digital]

One of my all-time favorite movies on so many levels, and the soundtrack music is splendid. This is a powerful story of a troubled young, lower-working class man (Matt Damon) who is a natural math "savant" and a voracious reader, without ever having gone to college. At one point, well into the movie, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) compares Matt Damon's character (named "Will") to the extraordinary Srinivasa Ramanujan--historically known as "The Man Who Knew Infinity." Ramanujan was an Indian mathematician who made great leaps of contributions in the field of math, without any formal training. The professor who made this comparison, played by Stellan Skarsgard, becomes the "Salieri" to Matt Damon's "Mozart."In this movie, "Good Will Hunting," Will works as a janitor, pushing a broom through the halls of MIT, where all around him, young people of greater economic means are getting a top-knotch education. Will is "discovered" by the MIT professor, soon after the professor puts a difficult math problem on a chalkboard in the hallway, which he hopes one of his students will be smart enough to solve by the end of the semester. I don't want to spoil the fun by telling you what happens next, but let's skip to the fact that Will--due to his "wrong side of the tracks" roots, is not "ready" to participate in society the way we wish we could bring the poor into better economic circumstances. He is on parole for assault and battery, he has the attention span of a hummingbird, and he abhors authority and decorum. Enter Robin Williams, as the "last-chance" psychotherapist brought in to try to help young Will, after a bevy of more "high class" psychotherapists fail to make headway and wind up bruised. The interactions between Williams and Damon will have you, by turns, laughing out loud and then crying and then laughing again: very compelling cinema. Add to all of this the beautiful "pre-Med," highly-educated coed, played delightfully by Minnie Driver, whom Will falls in love with, but tries to push away like everything else in his mixed-up life; and Will's best friend, played by Ben Affleck, who turns out to be the surprise "pivot" around which Will makes his most important decision of the movie. The soundtrack to this movie is haunting -- I bought the CD after seeing this movie for the first time when it first came out. I am reviewing it now, after watching it a third time, years and years later. My love for the film held up, and I noticed new subtleties this time around. Let me list three compelling reasons to see this movie:1. Watch it for the story: This is character development at its finest, and the story is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally heart-rending and heart-warming. The movie does not stoop to cliche developments, like "poor boy makes it big." The characters will each surprise you in their own way.2. Watch it for the science: This movie will awaken you to the truly fascinating minds of natural "savants," and how they are not determined by anything related to "nurture." Will had a childhood that could have left him mentally incapacitated. There are other movies about savants: Think "Rain Man," or "Little Man Tate," but neither of those movies treat this issue as seriously as this one does. This movie is on a much more sophisticated level -- more like the movie, "A Beautiful Mind," about the inimitable and recently-deceased Princeton mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr.3. Watch it for the social philosophy: With no partisan leanings whatsoever, this movie will leave you convinced of the need to increase educational opportunity in this country, while reminding the viewer that "giving a man a fish" (to "eat" for one day) is not the answer. Unless you can teach a man how to fish for a lifetime, any "charity" is essentially wasted on him, like the professor's early attempts to "provide" for "poor Will" shows us, in sharp delineation. At the end of this movie, you will find yourself asking how many others like Will might be out there, but will wind up in jail, instead of in college, because they did not pass a chalkboard in the hallway, while pushing their broom. The movie makes clear that throwing money at the problem is a disaster. The world, and the people in it, are more complex than that. You will still be thinking about this movie, LONG after you watch it.Oh, one caveat: My socially-reserved neighbors tell me they could not watch this movie through to the end because of the liberally-sprinkled cuss words in it. So alert-alert that some of the very real characters in this movie speak just as they would in South Boston. But, for heavens' sake, let's forgive them that, so that you don't miss one of the most compelling "coming of age" movies of all time.

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 Skarsgård). 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.

Love this movie, it is inspirational, a realistic tale that tugs at your heart strings. There is a lot of swearing, but if you are like me, the mother of teenage boys and girls, the swearing is just part of the way they talk, especially away from mom. The swearing bothered me the first time I watched this movie because I came from a family that got very offended by it, so I was programmed to focus on it instead of the quality of the movie. Now that my teenagers are almost out of their teen years, I can appreciate this movie in a new way. I am not offended by swearing anymore. In fact, I find it quite funny. Don't get me wrong, I expect my children to use it appropriately, in only specific company. Back to the movie… The performances here by all the actors are quite outstanding. This is definitely one to watch if you want to appreciate men in a new way. Robin Williams is fantastic, a serious role in this movie with touches of humor. Not appropriate for younger children.

Nice movie. Good storyline.Recommend it. I think it was worth the time spent watching it. Would watch it again probably.

Amazing screenplay and magnificent acting. I watch it about once a year. The world was a better place when you were with us Robin.

A powerful and heartfelt film with brilliant performances. Matt Damon and Robin Williams shine in a story that’s both emotionally moving and intellectually rich. A true classic.