Great Will Hunting

Rating: 9/10 (24 August 2014)

Gus Van Sant first caught my attention when I sat down with some friends to watch "Last Days", a biographical movie about the final days of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain. The movie was beautifully done, with many long and winding scenes shot in single takes that seemed to capture Cobain's final environment and mindset perfectly. It wouldn't be long before I would see his similarly styled drama "Elephant" about the events leading up to a school shooting. I knew he directed "Good Will Hunting" but somehow its taken me 17 years to finally sit down to watch it in its entirety, and I am so glad I finally was able to scratch this gem-- number 130 on the IMDb top 250-- off of the list.
Hot-headed adult orphan Will Hunting (Matt Damon) leads a pretty normal life for a South Boston reprobate: between his janitorial job at MIT and getting shmacked with his buddies (Ben and Casey Affleck) at his local watering hole, Will is pretty unremarkable—except that he's a genius, an inexplicable phenom that has a wealth of knowledge about many topics, but due to his hard-knocks upbringing, never had any substantial education. When he starts surreptitiously solving the complex equations that are posted in the MIT halls to challenge the students, he catches the attention of mathematics professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard). Gerry learns that Will is in trouble with the law, and is able to make a plea with the judge: In leau of jail time, Will has to study mathematics with Gerry and go to routine therapy. After many failed attempts with a number of therapists, Gerry calls on his former college roommate and psychology professor, Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) to help. After butting heads initially, Will and Sean start to slowly solve the one problem that Will can't—his own internal struggle.
This film is a wonderful examination of love, manhood, and socioeconomic status set to a gorgeous soundtrack (Danny Elfman). The relationship between Damon and Williams is priceless and powerful, beautifully scripted and masterfully executed (Williams won the Oscar that year for Best Supporting Actor with this role), and the addition of Minnie Driver is, to me, the icing on the proverbial cake. She is a beautiful and quirky addition to the cast and she and Damon are comfortable and charismatic together (her character was based on Damon's then girlfriend who left him for Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich just before filming). The script is a taut psychological ballet, with some of the best monologues I've heard in a good long while (Damon's rant about hitting the hash pipe and joining the National Guard especially!) To be completely honest, I think that the addition of the Affleck brothers brought this picture down a peg, though not nearly enough to weigh it down in a major way.