A touching venture

Rating: 8/10 (2 November 2012)

A youthful, but unhinged genius Will Hunting (Matt Damon) works as a janitor at the MIT, where he conspicuously solves higher level mathematical conundrum handed out to students by Fields Medal-winning combinatorialist Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård). Shocked by the ingenuity of the troubled orphan Lambeau ventures to have him enrol as his student. The South Boston bred man-child however prefers to spend time and money on booze by the gallons with his friends Chuckie Sullivan (Ben Affleck), Billy McBride (Cole Hauser) and Morgan O'Mally (Casey Affleck). Following a aggressive assault by Hunting on a man who bullied him as a child, Will agrees to attend therapeutic sessions and become Lambeau's protégé. After several therapist resign from taking on the troublesome genius, Lambeau finally asks his former roommate Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) to take on the formidable task. Despite a soul-breaking first encounter, Maguire decides on the challenge, despite the necessity of overcoming Hunting's intellectually layered self-defence mechanisms...
Back in the days "Good Will Hunting" offered a novelty perspective, one heavily layered in witty dialogue, well versed psychoanalysis and somehow avoiding pointless on-screen blabbering. A brain-child of youthful Affeck and Damon came a brilliant piece of drama, strongly carried on the shoulders of the central theme of the therapeutic sessions. Probably Gus van Sant's most mainstream effort is arguably also his most honest and best. Unskewed by pretence the story sells as a traditionally structured drama, but with such an intensely successful script, which makes it an undying classic. Although several scenes do seem rough, especially those centred around Skarsgård and the wasting away of Will's talent, almost misguided in intent and somewhat hollow, nowhere close to as forceful as the key sessions between Maguire and Hunting. Exposition is pretty low key and apart from lone scenes like Hunting's love interest, Skylar (Minnie Driver) flying away to California shuns away from artistic endeavours, keeping a simple and focused outlook on the key issues at hand - the question of fulfilment as defined by intellectual achievements as opposed to that of bliss happiness caused by human interaction.