GWH as a case-study in saving a non-active "protagonist"

Rating: Null/10 (5 March 2005)

I find GOOD WILL HUNTING immensely engaging throughout. And from the point of view of a writer analyzing the script, that's amazing -- because Will, the ostensible "protagonist", lacks two of the usual defining traits for that role: he is acted-upon far more than he acts, and he has no "story-goal".
Early on he solves the hallway problem, he picks the fight in the playground, rescues Chucky in the Harvard bar, and pursues Skylar. From there on he coasts, until the end when he makes his one and only life-bending decision in the movie: He leaves Boston to go see about a girl.
To those teaching story-craft, I suggest it's more useful pedagogically to hang the label "protagonist" not on Will, but on Sean, the therapist played by Robin Williams. Will is little more the protagonist than, say, the "Mona Lisa" would be in a caper movie depicting a bunch of guys trying either to steal or save that painting.
Sean does have an announced story-goal: Save the kid. And he acts-on Will until he, Sean, achieves that goal. (Sean also has a personal need, though it's one he's not aware of: He, like Will, has to be saved. This amounts to another story-goal the audience wants to see achieved, and again it's Sean's effort that achieves it: In the course of saving Will, he saves himself.) This view is of interest to more than academics. The practicing writer  and directors and dramaturgs -- should study just how it's pulled off  having a lead character who's essentially passive, and yet who holds and satisfies our attention throughout. GWH is a good case-study in how to break a craft-rule and survive.
GWH footnote: The "official" version of the screenplay published by Hyperion does not have a single scene, not one, that's identical to the movie as released.