Good Will Hunting
Year: 1997
Director: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon & Robin Williams
Runtime: 126 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 28/09/23
Director: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon & Robin Williams
Runtime: 126 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 28/09/23
I remember excitedly watching Good Will Hunting a number of years back based on the recommendations of basically every single person I had ever met. It appears to be one of those films that everyone has seen, and everyone seems to adore. So anyway, I went in with my appropriately high expectations and to say I was sorely disappointed is an understatement, I borderline hated it (although my Letterboxd rating of four stars seems to say the opposite, though I remembered only ever having negative things to say about the film at the time). Anyway, it’s been a good few years since all this happened and my girlfriend put the idea forward because she hadn’t seen it in a very long time and I felt as though it would be a good idea to give it another go. Has time and age changed me? The short answer is no.
Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is a self-taught and extremely intellectually gifted young man who works as a cleaner at MIT. He spends his free time drinking with his blue-collar friends Chuckie (Ben Affleck), Billy (Cole Hauser), and Morgan (Casey Affleck) who often use Will’s intellectual prowess to woo the ladies and belittle the local college students.
When Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) notices that Will has solved a number of complex math problems that were posted on a communal noticeboard, Lambeau wants to give Will an opportunity to put his brain to ‘good use’. The problem is that Will is in need of a major attitude adjustment and has a severe disrespect for authority, so Lambeau seeks the assistance of psychiatrist Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) in the hope that it will set him on the right path.
Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is a self-taught and extremely intellectually gifted young man who works as a cleaner at MIT. He spends his free time drinking with his blue-collar friends Chuckie (Ben Affleck), Billy (Cole Hauser), and Morgan (Casey Affleck) who often use Will’s intellectual prowess to woo the ladies and belittle the local college students.
When Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) notices that Will has solved a number of complex math problems that were posted on a communal noticeboard, Lambeau wants to give Will an opportunity to put his brain to ‘good use’. The problem is that Will is in need of a major attitude adjustment and has a severe disrespect for authority, so Lambeau seeks the assistance of psychiatrist Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) in the hope that it will set him on the right path.
There seems to be a couple of reasons as to why people really love Good Will Hunting, and the most prominent of them is usually Willaims’ performance. There is no doubt that Williams was a magnificent actor, but honestly, I’m not blown away by his turn in this film as I am his more animated roles in films like Mrs Doubtfire and Aladdin. For me, Williams is at his best when he can put his entire physicality behind a performance, where he can ad-lib to his hearts content, and he can make people laugh. With Sean in Good Will Hunting, he really is just a psychiatrist. A good one, but I wouldn’t say he’s irreplaceable in the role. It is always strange to see a comedic actor in a dramatic role, and Williams doesn’t do anything wrong exactly, but I feel like had Sean been played by any other big-name actor at the time we would likely have gotten the same quality performance.
The performances of Damon and Affleck are also usually given high praise, but I don’t really know where that praise comes from because neither of them can put on a Boston accent to save their lives (surprising given Damon growing up in Massachusetts). Not only does it just sound wrong, but they both constantly dip out of the accent mid-sentence.
The writing is something I’m on the fence about. Co-written by Affleck and Damon, the story it presents is one that is one you don’t see particularly often in Hollywood. A tale about confronting masculinity head on, deconstructing it, and trying to understand the good and bad of it. However, whilst this is something that’s good to see be tackled, I feel like this is exactly the kind of story that Will would shred to pieces in one of his many rants. For the most part I feel like the film puts up a good front of pretending to be something of substance, but once you actually look a little closer it’s just about a twenty-something man who uses his past trauma to be angry at the world. Had the film been executed a little better then I think the message of men needing to talk about their emotions would have been really powerful and resonated a lot with me, but instead it came across to me as though all Will wanted was someone to lay down, take his abusive onslaught, and then throw him a little pity party before he’d consider behaving like normal human being.
The performances of Damon and Affleck are also usually given high praise, but I don’t really know where that praise comes from because neither of them can put on a Boston accent to save their lives (surprising given Damon growing up in Massachusetts). Not only does it just sound wrong, but they both constantly dip out of the accent mid-sentence.
The writing is something I’m on the fence about. Co-written by Affleck and Damon, the story it presents is one that is one you don’t see particularly often in Hollywood. A tale about confronting masculinity head on, deconstructing it, and trying to understand the good and bad of it. However, whilst this is something that’s good to see be tackled, I feel like this is exactly the kind of story that Will would shred to pieces in one of his many rants. For the most part I feel like the film puts up a good front of pretending to be something of substance, but once you actually look a little closer it’s just about a twenty-something man who uses his past trauma to be angry at the world. Had the film been executed a little better then I think the message of men needing to talk about their emotions would have been really powerful and resonated a lot with me, but instead it came across to me as though all Will wanted was someone to lay down, take his abusive onslaught, and then throw him a little pity party before he’d consider behaving like normal human being.
The film moves at a snail’s pace too. Clocking in at just over two hours, it felt closer to four. A lot of what pisses Will off in the film are people who pretend to know what they’re talking about, and people who use flowery language to say something very simple. But that is exactly how Good Will Hunting is written. Nobody talks like a real human being, they all deliver long monologues full of big words and high concepts, even the characters that shouldn’t speak like that based on their intellect. The difference is that those characters just say ‘fuck’ after every other word, and that also gets incredibly grating to listen to.
I won’t deny that it’s somewhat impressive that two men in their early twenties wrote a film like Good Will Hunting, but at the same time it definitely feels like a film written by two men who don’t really understand the subject matter as well as they think they do.
I’m probably wrong. I’m totally prepared for everyone to hate me on this opinion but Good Will Hunting to me is a film that’s adored just because Robin Williams is in it. He’s not even at his best either which makes it all the more disappointing. The story has delusions of grandeur, seeming as though it’s far more intelligent than it actually is. Damon & Affleck’s performances are so bad here that it completely breaks any possibility of immersion, and it’s just way too long.
So yeah, apparently a modern classic but Good Will Hunting is a film I’d be happy never to watch again.
I won’t deny that it’s somewhat impressive that two men in their early twenties wrote a film like Good Will Hunting, but at the same time it definitely feels like a film written by two men who don’t really understand the subject matter as well as they think they do.
I’m probably wrong. I’m totally prepared for everyone to hate me on this opinion but Good Will Hunting to me is a film that’s adored just because Robin Williams is in it. He’s not even at his best either which makes it all the more disappointing. The story has delusions of grandeur, seeming as though it’s far more intelligent than it actually is. Damon & Affleck’s performances are so bad here that it completely breaks any possibility of immersion, and it’s just way too long.
So yeah, apparently a modern classic but Good Will Hunting is a film I’d be happy never to watch again.