One of the defining mentor-student movies

Rating: 6/10 (12 November 2016)

"Good Will Hunting" is an American English-language film from 1997, so this one will have its 20th anniversary next year. It is possibly the most known work by director Gus Van Sant and it brought him his first of (so far) two Academy Award nominations. The second came for "Milk" and I really really adore that one. But back to this one we have here. The script was written by lead actor Matt Damon and supporting actor Ben Affleck and the duo won an Oscar for it. Damon was also nominated for Lead Actor. Minnie Driver was nominated for Supporting Actress and the late Robin Williams won his Oscar for supporting as well. Other than that, the film scored nominations in the music categories as well as Best Picture of course. It was possibly the movie that catapulted young Matt Damon into the elite of Hollywood actors where he has stayed to this day, almost two decades later. He plays a young man with incredible talent in all kinds of intellectual areas, but his character gets in the way of fulfilling his potential and becoming who he can become. This would be an accurately short description of the plot here.
The other players in this film are his friends, his mentors and his girlfriend basically. And the actors received a great deal of awards recognition for what they did here. However, I personally am fairly disappointed about how much Stellan Skarsgård was basically ignored by awards bodies as he was truly as good as the rest of them who got recognized. All in all, this movie that runs over 2 hours and managed some great success despite the Titanic domination that year is a success. It has a heartfelt moment here and there and it is competently crafted. Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgård shine next to Matt Damon and I was honestly not that impressed by Driver for whom it's probably her career-defining performance. Yes, it is very much by the book and also predictable with the events, but this does not take anything away from its appeal. Damon certainly gives one of the best performances of his career. It's minor quotes that make a great effect here, like the one by Williams' character about why our hero chose to be a janitor at specifically this place or Affleck's character's quote near the end about how he cares about the protagonist fulfilling his potential which honestly came a bit surprising, but still felt authentic. Damon and Affleck showed later on in their careers how great they are when it comes to writing and Affleck also in other fields, so everybody who sees this duo as nothing but actors could not be more wrong and this film is a perfect example of their skill. They sure deserve to be where they are.
I personally found it a bit sad to watch Williams in here because of how much his character is struggling and the actor was probably struggling at least as much in the final years of his life. It is just pretty difficult to ignore that. At least for me. However, I am still glad he got the recognition he deserved for his turn here. He is definitely one of the better aspects of these two hours. This film scored a huge deal of awards attention as I already said and it is also very highly rated here on IMDb, easily inside the top250. I would not go so far to say it is one of the very best of 1997 I think, but it is certainly among the better films of the year. And it is also not among my personal 250 favorite films, but that's not a problem either. All the struggles I had with this film were mostly subjective I think, for example I did not like Damon's character as much as they wanted me to and as a consequence I did not care for him that much either. And the struggles between the two intellectuals in the film also added very little, even if the two actors were very good. This should not imply that I was dissatisfied in any way with how the film turned out. The good definitely outweighs the bad and I give this one a thumbs-up easily. It's also closer to a ****/***** than to a **/***** and maybe if the second half of the film had been as good as the first, then it may have achieved the former. Overall, it was a rewarding watch. Go see it if you are one of the few who have not yet done so after all these years.