Good Will Hunting

Rating: 7/10 (7 September 2005)

Written by best friends and stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and winning Oscars and Golden Globes for doing so, this is a pretty good drama, from Oscar nominated director Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy, To Die For, Psycho). Basically Will Hunting (Oscar and Golden Globe nominated (for actor) Damon) is a lowly janitor at a South Boston college, a bit of a rebel with his friends, including Chuckie Sullivan (Affleck) and Morgan O'Mally (Casey Affleck, Ben's brother), and hides a genius talent for memorising facts and solving/proving sophisticated mathematical theorems. It is when Will is facing imprisonment (for attacking a youth and a police officer) that he gets the chance to prove himself for Gerald Lambeau (Pirates of the Caribbean's Stellan Skarsgård). Will can either go to jail, or he can be supervised by Lambeau solving maths theorems, and see a therapist, which he disapproves of and believes he doesn't need, and manages to get rid of eight. Lambeau in desperation calls old college friend, now psychologist Sean Maguire (Oscar winning, and Golden Globe nominated Robin Williams), and after their first meeting, Sean is determined to connect with Will and his hostile, sarcastic defence mechanisms. It is after Sean strikes Will with his story of giving up his ticket to the Red Sox in the 1975 World Series (thus missing Carlton Fisk's famous home run in Game 6), instead to find a girl. This encourages Will to try and have a relationship with Skylar (Oscar nominated Minnie Driver). In the end, after quite a lot of bickering with Sean, Lambeau, and Skylar moving to California, Will sees the error of ways, gives up a job he could have got, and sends Sean a thank you note, saying he's going to "get a girl". Also starring John Mighton as Tom, Rachel Majorowski as Krystyn, Colleen McCauley as Cathy and The Cave's Cole Hauser as Billy. Damon became a star and obviously became Jason Bourne, Affleck is pretty good as Will's best friend, Skarsgård does pretty well as the teacher, and Driver is good as the English girlfriend, and of course, Williams deserved his Oscar for his subtle performance. It was nominated for Best Film Editing, Best Music for Danny Elfman, Best Song for "Miss Misery" and Best Picture, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama. Robin Williams was number 19 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars. Very good!