Michael Maddox - For School

Rating: Null/10 (29 April 2011)

Good Will Hunting centers around a boy named Will Hunting (Matt Damon). On the outside, Will looks like an average teenager from an impoverished neighborhood. He wears raggedy clothes, he lives with his best friend in the slums of Boston's South End, he hangs with a band of rowdy drunkards, and he gets into trouble with the law almost ritualistically. However, there is one thing that makes Will worthy of the audience's attention, that makes him different from anyone else in the film. He's literally a genius.
Early on in the film, it is established that Will has a natural ability to solve complex mathematical problems and absorb and memorize information. This fact is discovered by Prof. Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård), a brilliant mathematician, when he finds that one of the unsolved problems left on his white-board had been solved on a white-board in the hall. It quickly is realized that Will has no real direction in his life. He holds no true aspirations and so he does whatever it is he feels like doing with his friends, unable to contemplate a life beyond that. Lambeau enlists the help of several separate psychologists to try and come to terms with what is blocking Will from his potential, be the boy deflects their efforts in the most humiliating and degrading of ways. However, Lambeau finds an answer in an old schoolmate-turned-psychology-professor Sean Maguire (Robin Williams).
Despite being an intellectual giant and a well weathered member of the South End, Will still has his vulnerabilities. One of these is that he's unable to get close with anyone. During the first-half of the film he is introduced to Skylar (Minnie Driver). They soon hit it off and start dating. However, when Skylar requests that he move with her to California, he quickly shrinks away from her, spilling reason-after-reason why he can't commit to such a thing. Eventually, his ability to commit to a full-on relationship is challenged and, on Will's terms, they end up breaking up.
Will is very defensive when it comes to facing his issues, and he uses his intellect in a smart-aleck fashion to help shroud them. For a while, Will is even able to keep Sean at bay, using the sensitive issue of his late-wife to fluster him and keep off of Will's problems. But this only works for so long, as Will's first attempt at this causes Sean to show the rage-filled defense that he will exhibit to uphold her honor even in her death, forcing Hunting to dance around the subject in a sparing few incidences. Despite all this, Maguire comes to gain Will's trust, to an extent, and eventually he slowly makes with Will, helping Will come to terms with his childhood abuse by the end of the film and ensuring that the events of his life weren't his fault. This release helps Will to gain some sense of direction, awakening the drive for him to finally pursue Skylar in California.
There are a couple of techniques employed in the film that helped to compliment the overall theme nicely. One such technique is the use of irony. The idea of a person with an natural intellect living in a slummed area such as Boston's South End sounds absolutely preposterous, yet that very prospect is what helps draw the viewer into the story, dying to know what is keeping this insanely smart kid from escaping what we all consider a nightmarish situation. Something else used in the film is a motif. A motif is a repetitive image or message (literal, symbolic etc.) that communicates a sub-theme beneath the established theme. For this theme, I think it would be the idea that intellect alone cannot aspire greatness. Drive and a want for something better in life must accompany aptitude to help make something of one's life. In addition to that, I think Will had to learn that hiding behind fear only breeds contempt and failure and unhappiness, and that the only way to conquer fear is to take that leap of faith. To take a chance.