A Powerful Story with an Uplifting Message

Rating: 9/10 (22 October 2014)

I can't stress enough how much this film means to me. Since my youth, I was always quite taken with Boston – Cambridge in particular. As a portrait of the academic culture's conflict with the working class culture, it can't be stressed enough that though there is something of a fairy tale quality to this, it captures the grit-teeth of the Boston working class quite convincingly.
The story of the evolving relationship between Will (Damon) and Dr. Sean Maguire (Williams) is fraught with difficulty, but offers an honest reflection of the sobering power of friendship in the face of self-defeat brought on by child abuse. I think always in particular of this moment where Maguire speaks to Will and gives him the advice – that it's not his fault. We must remember this, through all our own traumas and abuses.