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Source:
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In essence, GOOD WILL HUNTING is an ordinary story told well. Taken as a whole, there's little that's special about this tale -- it follows a traditional narrative path, leaves the audience with a warm, fuzzy feeling, and never really challenges or surprises us. But it's intelligently written (with dialogue that is occasionally brilliant), strongly directed, and nicely acted. So, while GOOD WILL HUNTING is far from a late-year masterpiece, it's a worthwhile sample of entertainment.
Like SCENT OF A WOMAN, which was released around this time of the season five years ago, GOOD WILL HUNTING is about the unlikely friendship that develops between a world-weary veteran and a cocky young man. The formula for the two films is similar -- both of the principals learn from each other as they slowly break down their barriers on the way to a better understanding of life and their place in it -- but the characters are different. Al Pacino's Slade was a larger-than-life individual; Robin Williams' Sean McGuire is much more subtle. And Matt Damon's Will Hunting uses pugnaciousness to supplant the blandness of Chris O'Donnell's Charlie.
Will is a troubled individual. As a child, he was the frequent victim of abuse. An orphan, he was in and out of foster homes on a regular basis. Now, not yet 21 years old, he has accumulated an impressive rap sheet. He has a short temper and any little incident can set him off like a spark in a tinder box. But he's a mathematical genius with a photographic memory and the ability to conceive simple solutions to complex problems. While working as a janitor at MIT, he delights in anonymously proving theorems on the math building's hall blackboards. Then, one evening, his anonymity is shattered when Professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) catches him at work. Will flees, but Lambeau tracks him down. Unfortunately, by the time the professor finds him, Will is in jail for assaulting a police offer.
The judge agrees to release Will under two conditions: that he spend one day a week meeting with Lambeau and that he spend one day a week meeting with a therapist. Eventually, once several psychologists have rejected the belligerent young man, Sean McGuire, a teacher at Bunker Hill Community College, agrees to take the case. After a rocky start, the two form a rapport and Will begins to explore issues and emotions he had walled up behind impregnable armor. And, as Will advances his self-awareness in sessions with Sean, he also learns about friendship from his buddy, Chuckie (Ben Affleck), and love from a Harvard co-ed named Skylar (Minnie Driver).
The script, by co-stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, is not a groundbreaking piece of literature, and occasionally resorts to shameless manipulation. The characters are well-developed, however, and there are times when the dialogue positively sparkles. At one point, Will comments that a session with Sean is turning into a "Taster's Choice Moment." Later, Will gives a brilliant, breathless diatribe against the NSA that has the rhythm of something written by Kevin Smith. (Note: Since Smith co-executive produced GOOD WILL HUNTING, it's not out of the question that he had some input into this scene.)
Director Gus Van Sant (DRUGSTORE COWBOY, TO DIE FOR) culls genuine emotion from his actors, and this results in several affecting and powerful scenes. There's an edginess to some of the Sean/Will therapy sessions, and the offscreen chemistry between Matt Damon and Minnie Driver (who became romantically linked while making this film) translates effectively to the movie -- the Will/Skylar relationship is electric. Likewise, the companionability of Damon and Affleck is apparent in the easygoing nature of Will and Chuckie's friendship. Many of the individual scenes are strong enough to earn GOOD WILL HUNTING a recommendation, even if the overall story is somewhat generic.
Matt Damon, who recently starred as the idealistic young lawyer in THE RAINMAKER, is solid (although not spectacular) as Will. Minnie Driver (last seen in GROSSE POINTE BLANK) adds another strong performance to a growing resume (and it's refreshing that she was allowed to keep her British accent rather than having to attempt an American one). The outstanding performance of the film belongs to Robin Williams, whose Sean is sad and wise, funny and somber. Arguably the best dramatic work in the actor's career (alongside what he did in THE FISHER KING), Williams' portrayal could earn him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Adequate support is provided by Ben Affleck (CHASING AMY) and Stellan Skarsgard (BREAKING THE WAVES).
Like most of what comes before it, the ending of GOOD WILL HUNTING is completely predictable. But meeting expectations and following a familiar path aren't always bad things in a movie, provided the film accomplishes those goals with a modicum of style and an attention to detail. GOOD WILL HUNTING does both, and, as a result, earns a rating commensurate with the "good" in the title.
By : James Berardinelli
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Source:
rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
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Frankly, the film did not do a lot for me. I could not believe the mail character. Goethe was one of the great geniuses in history and he excelled, as opposed to just being good, in only a few fields. The premise of GOOD WILL HUNTING bothered me from the very beginning because it was too difficult to believe that Will Hunting could be as brilliant in as many different fields as the script requires him to be. To have a super-genius of his caliber places this film more in the category of science fiction than that of a believable drama. The premise that there is someone out there of this magnitude of brilliance who has not by the age of 20 come to a lot of people's attention seems unlikely. Here he is working as a custodian at MIT and he can easily beat the best mathematics professors on the faculty. Then he demonstrates he is way ahead of an economics graduate student in that student's own field. This would be hard to believe of someone who spends his full time studying, but Will Hunting (played by Mark Damon) seems to spend very little time in books. Instead he spends most of his spare time drinking with his blue-collar buddies and getting into trouble with the law.
His real genius is discovered by mathematics Professor Lambeau (Stallan Skarsgard), winner of the Fields Medal (the most prestigious award in mathematics). Lambeau gives his classes a prize problem to see if one person can get it over the semester. Janitor Will Hunting solves it with the effort of doing the Times Crossword Puzzle and leaves the answer anonymously on a hallway blackboard.
Lambeau sets a harder problem and Hunting solves it also, but is seen leaving the answer. This gives Lambeau the clue needed to track down the mysterious genius whom he finds conducting his own legal defense after having attacked a police officer. Hunting fails to convince the judge and is sentenced to jail. Lambeau arranges a parole on two conditions: Hunting will undergo analysis and will do math with Lambeau. Once he is discovered, different people fight to understand Will Hunting and to pull him in different directions. For a long stretch there are just four breeds of scene in this film. Hunting carouses and drinks with his rough-playing blue-collar buddies; Hunting does math with Lambeau, proving himself a far better mathematician than anybody on the MIT faculty; Hunting has a relationship with Skylar (Minnie Driver), an English Chemistry student; Hunting has mutually parasitic mind game sessions with his analyst (Robin Williams). The film just goes back and forth among these scenes until Hunting decides how to handle his life.
Hunting's ability to turn psychiatrists into raving animals in minutes seems more modeled on Hannibal Lector than on anything human. It takes many sessions with his analyst before they can talk in anything but sarcastic jabs. The film does a decent job of showing the relationship between Hunting and his lifelong friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck) who really care for each other. The relationship with his girlfriend was OK, but covers well-trodden territory. But Hunting's mind seems really clear only when he is doing mathematics. It is never clear what exactly is going on in Hunting's mind or why he changes in just the ways he does, sometimes playing games and others following the simplest of advice. This is a film with a serious credibility problem and one which stagnates in the middle act. I would give it a 5 on the 0 to 10 and a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Side comment: It is difficult to present someone superbly brilliant in a film without having someone being superbly brilliant to write the script. Damon does a reasonable job playing the troubled super-luminary who has buried himself in a lower-class lifestyle, if any such person has ever existed. The film draws false parallels to Ramanujan and Einstein, neither of whom had Will Hunting's broadband versatility. For what it is worth, this is one of the few film that did a reasonable job of representing higher mathematics. Certainly the they got the facts on the Fields Medal (though they omitted to mention that you have to be young to win the Fields). Ramanujan did not actually work for "many years" with Hardy as stated. He died quite young, probably in large part because of his transplanting from his native climate to England. It was a tremendous loss.
I would have assumed that answers to really difficult problems in combinatorics might involve complex counting arguments and would not fit on a single blackboard, but it is possible. It filmed nicely, but it is unlikely a mathematician would do math with a marking pen on a mirror. It is too easy to accidentally rub off, it does not give enough writing space, and the results are not easily portable or savable. He may have done some scratch-work there, but even that seems unlikely.
It is hard to believe an American mathematician would not know who Ted Kaczynski is.
By : Mark R. Leeper
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