Overall Rating
  Awesome: 60.47%
Worth A Look: 18.14%
Just Average: 10.23%
Pretty Crappy: 4.19%
Sucks: 6.98%
5 reviews, 185 user ratings
|
|
| Good Will Hunting |
by Ophelia13
"I'm holding out for something better. Have you seen anything yet?"
|
Good Will Hunting is that one movie, you've heard of it. The two guys wrote it because they weren't getting any parts they liked, and then it went on to win a bunch of awards. How's that for luck? Well, it isn't luck at all.Believe it or not, it's skill. You wouldn't expect it from two actors, but these two pulled it off. These two, who grew up together and are best friends, even. Where did quality like this come from? Not a mass market script writer, that's for sure.
Will Hunting (hence the title) is 20 years old, an orphan, a janitor, and a good friend to get drunk with. Incidentally, he's a genius. He can't play the piano, he can't create art, but he's one of those people who can just store something away for future reference, and never lose it. Maybe it's a photographic memory, maybe it's because the script says so. But he can do it, and he does it well.
Thing is, though, he doesn't want to. He says he didn't ask to be smart, why should he have to be? He'd much rather just sit around drinking beer and grinding out a paycheck for the rest of his life. Irony's a bitch. His friends can't believe him. Why would anyone want that? You wouldn't, and I wouldn't. But this isn't about us or what we want, it's about Will. Just like everything else.
Will has issues, you see. Of course, as anyone who's ever taken psychology knows, it's rooted in his childhood. That's where Sean comes in.
Sean is a shrink, but not a practicing shrink. He hasn't practiced for quite awhile. He teaches about Freud's cocaine habits, instead. Sean is also Robin Williams, who won an Oscar not only for his great performance, but the amazing feat of growing even more hair on himself. Sean comes to know Will through the evil (maybe not evil, but at least annoyingly mean) math professor who got Will out of prison and is helping him create a life for himself in the fascinating field of linear equations and matrices. But remember that Will doesn't want any of this, because of his childhood experiences.
So, Will's in therapy, has a girlfriend, and has no fear of prison guards allowing him to become the best piece of ass in the cell block. Swell. Everything's all good, and those Boston accents are even starting to grow on the audience. This is the fine and dandy part of every movie where it all starts to fall apart.
What we really have here isn't a struggle with anyone but Will and himself. He has to figure out what he wants, and how he's going to get it. That's our requisite conflict. Does the movie have what it takes to bring this around to a close?
Sure. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon probably couldn't have written a better screenplay. The underlying idea isn't really that impressive, in fact it seems right boring if you think of it stripped down to the basics. But on screen, it's not boring at all. The interaction between characters pulls you in, and the flow is so natural you could be hearing your best friend talking to you from right up there on screen.
The acting's top notch. That would explain the little gold statue Robin Williams displays so proudly in his bathroom. The role Ben Affleck set up for his little brother Casey seems more than apt, in an unusual set of circumstances. Minnie Driver helps us to understand Skylar; instead of wishing her whiny ass would get off the screen.
The only flaw here is the disappointing revelation that there aren't many flaws. We aren't supposed to have this as a product of the movie industry. Somehow, we do.Good Will Hunting brings us something we're not really used to in American cinema; honesty, and the urge to drink a beer. Well, honesty anyway.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=94&reviewer=130
originally posted: 04/29/00 18:48:16
![[printer]](/images/icon/printer.gif) printer-friendly format
|
 |
USA
05-Dec-1997 (R)
DVD: 04-Mar-2003
UK
N/A
Australia
02-Feb-1998 (MA)
|
|
Articles 
subscribe to this feed![[AllPosters.com]](/images/icon/ap.gif){kind=icon}
