Promising screenwriting debut but an overrated movie.

Rating: 7/10 (23 December 2001)

A good piece of screenwriting by young cast members Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, but one that I don't think will stand the test of time. Matt Damon's (Will) performance as the troubled working-class genius in need of guidance is excellent. However, I think that this was too much of a feelgood movie and an endorsement of counselling, for it to be a truly great film. I found Minnie Driver's (Skylar) expressionless English accent thoroughly irritating and it destroyed, for me, the possibility of the romance between Will and Skylar being interesting.
The performances of Robin Williams (Sean Maguire) and Stellan Skarsgard (Professor Lambeau) are good. The patient-therapist relationship between Damon and Williams is played well by both actors. The films flaw is that it lacks real depth of characterisation. There is a good story in this movie, but it lapses into classical Hollywood slushiness with all ends tied neatly together. Some characters, such as the pseudo-intellectual student who Will runs rings around while chatting up Skylar and a friend, are pretty one dimensional as he is someone we can easily mock and despise, just like the lapdog (what's his name?) who follows Lambeau around.
There are few profundities in this film and I find the idea that therapy is what is needed to help a troubled young prodigy out of his predicament rather spurious. We are also shown how Will's initial hostility to therapy as part of his probation is surrendered. While one would not wish Will to remain an angry young man with no direction, I find the belief that therapy can necessarily mediate the relationship between an individual and society too hard to swallow.