Good Will Hunting (1997): Reengaging with My Childhood Memory

Good Will Hunting (1997)

*this post contains spoilers*

What else can I say? I loved this movie. This is the typical me movie. It has drama, romance, it was intelligent, gets to you deeply, it inflicts you psychologically, and it makes you cry. This is Good Will Hunting.

This inspiring and beautiful motion picture is directed by Gus Van Sant, starring Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Stellan Skarsgard, and Minnie Driver. The story was written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck themselves!

I've known this movie since I was a kid, and I even got to watch it although I don't remember much about. I remember a student living in our house that time, also a good friend of my parents, his room was this room across ours, and I liked to hang out there a lot, and that time he was watching a movie. Okay, so I'm not sure where exactly he was watching it that time, either it was in a laptop in his room (I'm not certain whether we were able to watch movies on laptops that time) or on the video player in our living room downstairs, but I remember watching it with him and that he always covered my eyes with his hand every time there's a grown-up scene (which made me curious about it). I remember the scenes where Will wrote these mathematical stuff on the chalkboard, the mirror. I remember that girl saying "I think I got your pickle" to him after they kissed while eating burger. But I don't remember much and I don't believe I watched till the movie was over. So now that I've watched the whole movie, I finally know what I've been missing out, really been missing out on, and that I neglected the memory and discontinued it for quite too long (it's been like, 10 years since that time I first saw it). Anyways, I'm being dramatic... -_____-

The film is about a young mathematics genius named Will Hunting (Matt Damon), who also has this ability of strong memory that he can memorize various facts from the books he reads and stuff. He works as a janitor at MIT, and one day he finds this problem written by a mathematician award winning professor named Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) on the chalkboard in the hall for his students to solve. Will observes the problem and easily solves it. Prof. Lambeau discovers that the problem has been solved and wonders who did it, but none of his students admitted it as their work. On the next occasion, Prof. Lambeau writes another problem on the chalkboard (which took him and his colleagues two years to solve) and after a while he catches Will writing on it and chases after him, thinking the janitor was trying to vandalize the board, until he finally notices with astonishment that Will had solved the problem. That's the beginning of everything......

Will gets caught in a fight and is sent to jail but Prof. Lambeau comes to him and explains that he would get released under two conditions, the first is that Will was to work with him with all these mathematical theorems and stuff, and the second is that Will had to attend therapy to improve his mental problems. In comes Robin Williams as the "chosen" psychologist, Sean Maguire, after Lambeau failed with his first five. Sean figures out a way to get the better of his patient, and the two of them gradually form a bond, and discover they relate to each other more than either of them realized.

Will's defense and unwillingness to attach himself with other people comes from the fear of being left ever since his childhood. This fear intervenes again with his relationship Skylar, the girl whom he met at the bar (Minnie Driver), just when Will had begun to yield and their relationship was reaching the point of intimacy. Skylar asks Will to come along with her to California, and this triggers every fear and worry to be unleashed. Will refuses to let her further into his life, for fear of her knowing something that wouldn't please her and make her leave him, but before she could do that, he makes sure that he is the one who leaves her first. This break-up scene was one of the most heartbreaking and tense scenes in the movie, and really sad...

Okay, so I'm not gonna give away the entire plot right now, I'm gonna stop here. :)

Honestly, I was surprised when I watched this movie again that there was a whole lot of swear words and that he turned out to be a troubled young man. I really didn't remember this, and before watching it again I, relying on my memory, took him for a nice, gentle, man. Turns out it was a whole different story.

I don't think I've ever seen Matt Damon play a deeper role. The defensive, troubled kid, with a rough childhood, abused by his foster dad, and growing up he drowned himself with guilt and this self-loathing builds up in him that leads him to feed up to the rather inadequate way of living instead of maximizing the potentials of his brain which could open up to a better way of living. It was hard and intense just to watch him struggle with himself, and I felt for him here, I really felt for him. I swear, sometimes I saw him as a lost little puppy in the rain. Moreover at that scene where he breaks down and cries after Sean repeatedly assures him, "It's not your fault... It's not your fault.." Dang, that made me tear up.

One of my favorite scenes was on their second meeting, when Sean took Will out to sit by the lake and try to get through to him, which was the first step towards breaking that defense down.

Sean: Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me... fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?
Will: No.
Sean: You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about.
Will: Why thank you.
Sean: It's all right. You've never been out of Boston.
Will: Nope.
Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right?
[Will nods]
Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

I loved it. I completely felt it.

I love everything about the movie! It's a beautiful movie with a great cast and great characters, and an intelligently written screenplay, and a wonderful direction by Gus Van Sant. To think that the writers of the film itself were Matt Damon and Ben Affleck! Wow, I honestly never expected this. I mean, who would expect two very good-looking young actors to be able to write a remarkable story like this? At least, I know I didn't. It's not a typical, and it's just fantastic. This movie made me laugh, giggle, cry, contemplate, and love it.

I loved every character in the movie, including even Will's best buddies, especially Ben Affleck starring as Will's best friend, Chuckie Sullivan, and most especially his part in the scene where he talks about the future with Will, and that he wanted a better future for him, and then points the fact where the happiest moment of his days were those between when he walks out of his car to Will's front door, and knocking on it only to find that Will had left the neighborhood at last.

I guess there's nothing more to say about Robin Williams' role in this movie. He portrays his role with as much depth and dedication as usual.

I only wish it didn't end so fast, and that at least they got to how Will made things up again with Skylar (but hey, that's just my own self-indulgence).

(IF YOU HAVEN'T) YOU GOTTA SEE GOOD WILL HUNTING!