Good Will Hunting
Cast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Robin Williams, Minnie Driver
Director: Gus Van Sant
Movie Help Web Popcorn Kernels:
People around Boston, by and large, adore Good Will Hunting.
I'm not one of them.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck should stick to acting, and leave screenplays to someone else.
As much as I would like to laud the pair's writing, I can't honestly say the story for Good Will Hunting deserved the Oscar over As Good As It Gets or The Full Monty, two of 1997's more enjoyable films. What's more, the Academy Award-winning screenplay by Damon and Affleck is actually the movie's major problem. Their script sets up some good characters and places them in interesting situations, only to leave them stuck in neutral for most of the film — and then plops them five hundred miles further down the road.
The major victim of this is the title character, Will Hunting (Damon), a working-class kid from South Boston who's smarter than his surroundings. He studies organic chemistry for fun, reads Howard Zinn for recreation, and solves equations that occupy professors for years. Hunting is much less adept at handling real-life relationships, except with his best buddy, Chuckie (Affleck) and their pals, Morgan (Casey Affleck) and Billy (Cole Hauser). A troubled past has left him with a belligerent attitude - and a lengthy rap sheet. So when Gerald Lambeau (Stellen Skarsgard), an award-winning MIT professor, decides to tutor Hunting in advanced mathematics, he also arranges for regular sessions with psychiatrist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams).
Up to this point, the film moves along at a fair clip. We've gotten a good introduction to Will's world — the drinking, the horsing around, the chip on his shoulder that invites a fight with anyone, anytime. We've had a funny scene where Will bests a Harvard student at his own theory-spouting game, and even funnier confrontations with a series of shrinks (including a hilarious cameo by George Plimpton). And we've met what could prove to be Will's saving grace, the smart, self-assured Skylar (Minnie Driver). All in all, comic, inventive and full of local color.
Once Will enters therapy, however, Good Will Hunting switches to a less adventurous route, and puts its characters in limbo. True, we become better acquainted with Maguire (the sessions actually reveal more about him than his patient). We see more instances of Will's intellectual genius, and his lack of emotional smarts in his dealings with Skylar. We witness the predictable tug of war between Skarsgard's arrogant prof, who wants Will to reach for the stars, and the more easygoing psychiatrist, who urges Will to follow his own path.
The problem: through all this, Will doesn't really change. Up until almost the final scene, he remains essentially the same: self-centered, brash, yet supremely insecure. This would be fine if the movie recognized this — if it treated him as a work-in-progress who has a lot of healing to do yet. However, the feel-good ending resolves his problems too quickly and too simply to be believable; there's barely any preparation for Will's change of heart. (As Good As It Gets, though it also features an artificially "up" ending, at least acknowledges that Jack Nicholson's obsessive-compulsive has a long way to go.)
Similarly, Skarsgard and Williams - once their battle of "wills" is set up - don't really have anywhere to go, and the latter's own angst is too easily disposed of. Which is a shame, because both actors do a good job with what they're given. Again, I'm not sure Williams' was an Oscar-worthy role — I felt Greg Kinnear was better in As Good As It Gets — but he gives a solid, if subdued, performance.
Damon, looking as if he's spent a lot of time in the gym just for this movie, does fine with the title role. Affleck hits the right notes as Will's best buddy, who harbors hopes for his pal that he himself can never expect to meet (though we never get a hint of this before the scene in question). Driver, fast becoming one of my favorites, displays a bit of the comic flair that serves her so well in An Ideal Husband, and conveys sincerity and heart to boot.
Other than a few artsy shots — the opening credits, a few overhead looks and pans — there are no surprises in the cinematography. Everything looks and feels like Boston, though some interiors were reportedly filmed in Toronto.
I hope that the Cambridge chums' next screenplay lives up to the initial promise of their first.
Recommended: as stated above, both As Good As It Gets and The Full Monty lost out to Good Will Hunting in the Best Original Screenplay category. That's a pity, since both feature excellent writing, with likable, funny and believable characters and engrossing storylines, as well as top-notch acting.
