Good Will Hunting is Good

Review: Good Will Hunting (1997)

By Grayson VanDyke

“Do you like apples?” is the perfect set-up line, because regardless if the recipient says yes or no the punchline “how do you like them apples?” still works, although it changes the effect of the mic-drop moment.

“So, you like apples, huh? Well, how do you like them apples?” *sick burn*

“Oh, you don’t like apples. Well, how do you like them apples?” *helpful suggestion*

Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is a cocksure, well-read, fight-winning, bricklaying, janitor, orphan who also happens to be a genius math prodigy who can attract the ladies (it’s not surprising Matt Damon co-wrote the script). One day he solves an incredibly difficult math problem on a board at MIT and later faces imprisonment after getting into a fight. This incites MIT math Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård) to seek him out. He arranges Will to avoid jail time so long as he does math problems with him and attends therapy sessions. Although Will’s math solving ability is incredible, he drives off every therapist he meets. As a last resort Professor Lambeau asks his former college roommate, Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), to work with Will. Through the course of the film Will is confronted by the many pressures he faces including his future career opportunities (with added pressure from Professor Lambeau) as well as his romantic life (Will dates Skylar, a British Harvard student played by Minnie Driver), all while Sean helps Will find what he really wants out of life.

The primary aspect that makes Good Will Hunting so great is the relationship between Will and his therapist Sean. Despite Will initially ripping into Sean like he did all his previous therapists, Sean doesn’t give up and continues with the sessions. We eventually learn that Sean is an ex-soldier, grew up with an abusive father, and that his wife died of cancer two years ago. We get a brief glimpse into Sean’s home with the sink full of dishes; his personal life is not in harmony. Although Will is a troubled kid and Sean is the therapist, it seems clear that Sean needs Will nearly as much as Will needs Sean. It would have been easy to write Sean as a sort of infallible mentor type who has all the answers to Will’s problems, but he knows the limits of his advice and acknowledges when Will has to make the next move on his own. They both challenge each other. Robin Williams brings a vulnerability to Sean in a performance that can’t be praised enough. Matt Damon is also excellent at being completely punchable one moment and sympathetic the next.

“If you’re great at something, then you have an obligation to pursue it.” Plato said that (maybe) about society (probably). This film may ask you, what do you want out of life? Well, only you can answer that, and only you can go get it! Good Will Hunting is a film that Plato (possibly) would have ripped his hair out watching, because at the end of the day the film encourages you to engage with what you want with life, and to not listen to anyone like Plato who wants to tell you what to do.

Oh yeah and Ben Affleck is in the movie.