typical mainstream film product

Rating: 4/10 (25 October 2009)

The only reason this movie got made, I suppose, is that Robin Williams found a role he liked and wanted to do. A few notes : (1). The type of "genius" that is portrayed here does not, to my knowledge, exist. Mathematics and the humanities emanate from two different areas in the brain, both of which are NEVER simultaneously developed to the extent indicated here. On top of that Will Hunting has what is apparently a photographic memory. AND he's very good-looking, *AND* he's a tough. Wow. This is really yet another dumbed-down Superhero movie in disguise.
(2). Psychiatry is a highly complex and arcane field, as intellectually formidable as anyone could want. You can neither embrace it nor reject it wholesale. The pompous, self-deluded disdain shown by uneducated people for "shrinks" is here also shown by Will, thereby negating his supposed intellectual worthiness. Also, psychoanalytic theory ceased being at the forefront of psychotherapy decades ago. People who are still bashing Freud should really do a bit of reading.
This falls into the category of 99% of films that are designed for passive viewing, and not to challenge or stimulate the viewer in any real sense. It all adds up to a big nothing ; just a bunch of oversweetened moments that will work for people who have no real mental life. The "math" here is little more than a set-prop with no real depth or detail (Disclaimer : I am an engineer). Will Hunting and his coterie of "friends" are really total dumbasses. The "girlfriend" is skin-crawlingly obnoxious, but then again men are desperate fools, so I guess he COULD endure her.
The two kids who wrote this movie have never actually read a difficult book. Its a film made BY the uneducated, FOR the uneducated. If you liked this, you are a pseudo-intellectual.