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 Great Aug 13, 2010
I think this is a great movie. It truly was inspiring, and I'm glad I finally got around to ordering it. My only problem with this movie is that it's not that applicable to everybody. Yes, it urges you to be brave and truly reach for what you're capable of, even though it's much easier (and 'safer', emotionally) to not achieve anything but not have tried to in the first place. However, Will is a genius. While he can just one day decide to show his talents to the world and suddenly have job offers and 'success' sprouting up everywhere, not many people can. I had the same problem with 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'. Yes, it was a touching story, but at the end of the day, viewers can't fully take the lesson to heart because nobody will ever be faced with his problem of aging backwards.
I know movies are meant to dramatize things, and write about Big, not-everyday topics. But what about the people who were brave, who did go out into the world and try their best, and still didn't get where they wanted to? For them, there is no inner genius waiting to save them, and this movie may not seem very relevant or inspiring. At the end of the day, this is still a great movie with incredible acting and dialogue. But I just wanted to point something out for others to ponder - all good works of art should prompt discussion.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Just Another "Holden Caufield" Jun 07, 2010
After watching Good Will Hunting, I was struck by two similarities to other works of fiction (in this case, novels) that I had previously read: J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye", and Stephen King's "Rage". Unfortunately, I did not enjoy either of those efforts, and didn't take to "Hunting" any more pleasantly.
For a basic plot summary, this film centers on young Will Hunting (Matt Damon), a mathematical genius (of savant proportions) who spends his time mopping floors at a local university before solving a complex equation left on a blackboard and catching the eye of a math professor (Stellan Skarsgård). However, Will is a troubled young man who lacks motivation, along with a history of violence, and thus is sent to therapist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), who tries a rather unorthodox approach to salvaging the boy's unique talents.
Although I can see why some people would like this film much more than I (due to the deep psychological themes), I have never been one much for the "bratty youngster needs a character treatise to understand what he is going through" type of storytelling. To me, Will Hunting was an arrogant, unmotivated jerk in the beginning of the film, then a whole bunch of psychological terms/scenarios were thrown around, and now suddenly I'm supposed to believe that everything is okay? Not quite.
To me, the most interesting scenes in this film revolved around Hunting's potential girlfriend (played by Minnie Driver). I actually felt that her relationship with Will (and her character altogether) were the high points of the film, not the "tense" client-therapist scenes that were supposed to steal the show.
I realize that I am probably in the minority here, but I really can't recommend this film to anyone besides those who love to be wowed by psychological scenarios/situations. I found it be pretentious and bloated to be otherwise.
0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 The Good, The Bad and How We Need Both Jun 03, 2010
In Good Will Hunting (the 1997 movie starring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Robin Williams) we see a juxtaposition of the academic and institutionally revered with 'street-level' forms of the trivial and repulsive. Maths discussions filled with heavy-weight theories and formulae share center-stage with sleazy sex conversations and crap-talk of the most juvenile level.
This reaches a zenith at a Harvard bar when Will Hunting's (the genius abused and abandoned by his parents who's also the pro-an-tagonist of the show, played well by then first-timer Matt Damon) friend, Chuckie (played to perfection by a then similarly unknown Ben Affleck), tried to pass himself off as a Harvard student to chat up girls but got into trouble when a real Harvard boy challenged him. At the very moment when Chuckie would've had to slink away in intellectual humiliation, Will comes in and stunningly blows the other guy away with his page-precise citations of American history, exposing his opponent as a plagiarist who had a long way to go in terms of academic robustness. Will, of course, can't resist slamming the entire American college education system when he mocked the Harvard student for having "dropped a 150 grand on an education which he could've gotten for 1.50 in late-charges at the public library."
And that's the turning point in the movie. It's not just the place where "street" meets "smart", it's also where Will meets Skylar, his future girlfriend whose love yet frailty and very human demands force Will to either radically reconsider (with the help of his psychologist, Sean, sensitively portrayed by crazyman Robin Williams) his whole I-don't-give-a-damn philosophy or lose the one person who loves him and desperately wants him to love her.
Assuming the movie isn't just about the personal redemption of an orphan who also happens to be a genius, what else is it about? Is the film showing us the kinds of worlds we live in, one reflective of society's best values, another nonsensical and ultimately self-destructive? Or are we being presented with two kinds of serious? Or does the movie claim that human betterment can only be achieved via an immersion in and familiarity with the 'scum' and dregs of society?
This last theme - that the mind-blindingly brilliant is often not only indistinguishable from the unhygienically banal but often requires it - has many expressions in the movie. E.g. Will's counselor, Sean, came from a rough neighbourhood and was the only one who could 'reach' Will, with at least three other 'academic' types failing miserably; Gerry, the Maths professor looking for Will, couldn't find him without the help of two janitors; Sean talks about how Will's friends, despite their socio-economic situation, has unflinching loyalty for Will, implying that this virtue is somehow alien to the likes of Gerry; Part of Sean's brilliant monologue to Will in the park includes explaining how the simple act of sitting next to a dying wife makes the difference between knowing about love and knowing what love truly is i.e. Sean's being there trumps all the books Will has and will ever read.
The title of the movie itself, 'Good Will Hunting', gives us a paradox in the form of a question, "What's so good about Will?" His intellect, whilst undeniably supreme, has served not much use apart from giving him an edge in assault-and-battery cases (in which he defends himself by using cases over a hundred years old). All his reading and arguments have entrenched him even deeper in his social defiance, deep yet hidden self-pity and more than occasional explosions of violence. One could even say that because he was so smart, he could never fail to see why he didn't have to change his life. A critical point of the movie is when Chuckie, completely against expectations, rebukes Will for wasting his talent. Chuckie, despite being far less gifted than Will, profoundly recognises his limits and because of that chides Will for NOT seeing how he has no limits, and how his continued refusal to seek out success represents an insult to people like Chuckie.
Of course, one could also see the title 'Good Will Hunting' as the search for goodwill in people's lives and our own. This not only exemplifies Will's (unacknowledged?) quest in the movie, it also points out the surprising places and persons where goodwill can be found: in a grieving psychologist, in foul-mouthed dirt-poor friends and from students nowhere near one's intellectual standards but who love with aching passion.
In a word, 'good' was bad, and the 'bad' contains much which can be called good and if we can't see that, then too bad.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
One of the best films of the 90's! May 21, 2010
I love this movie--have watched it several times. Great performances by all. My favorite scene is in the college bar where Will puts a cocky, know-it-all-wannabe student in his place. Robin Williams does indeed deliver an Oscar-winning performance. Until recently I couldn't figure out why Will never applied himself in school and go on to college and all, since he's so obviously interested in learning, studying in his spare time as a hobby. Another reviewer wisely pointed out after reading my old review of this flick that Will never outwardly pursued academics because he probably was afraid of being alienated by his circle of friends, none of whom were gifted at all like he was. Since he had a terrible childhood, this circle of friends was certainly the only source of "belonging" that he had in his life, hence his doing all of his studying in secret.
Thanks, R.W, for the clarification...I highly recommend this movie!
1 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 One star is a bit hyperbolic, however; Mar 31, 2010
The reliance on technical subject matter in order to create an air of whimsy or intrigue feels a bit synthetic to me. The psychological aspect of the movie seemed to be too weak to stand alone, and required a supplement of fantasy. The fantastic aspects were not particularly well crafted, and felt a bit clunky at times. In some ways it seems that the psychological core of the piece is co-opted by the requirement of suspension of disbelief in the sense that by incorporating the abilities of Will the writers seek to enhance the effect of the psychological encounters by disarming the viewer. It is fairly obvious to me (though maybe I'm just a nut case) that they build Will up as an exceptional character and then show him to be human in a fairly cliche way, while dodging any real psychological insight.
Another minor point, which I see has been brought up here before: They clearly did not try to carefully integrate the actualities of the sort of environments (academic or otherwise) that Will finds himself interacting with. It seems painfully obvious that the writers were not genuinely grounded in what they were attempting to show.
Considering that in theory I have to put this movie up to the test against those of Kurosawa, Fellini, Bergman, and any of the other great expositors of the human condition (arguably including Dostoevsky, Sartre and Camus and other writers at least as far as the adeptness of the writers to expose the human condition); as a psychological drama it seems to fall flat. So I guess I have to say that I find it a bit scandalous that this movie has averaged 4 out of 5 gold stars, it's pretty clearly too flimsy to hold up under the weight of that much gold.
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