Goodish Will Hunting

Rating: 5/10 (10 November 2012)

I'm aware of the significance of this movie in bringing Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to prominence not only as actors but as screenwriters and watched it with a degree of expectation. However the story of Damon's rebellious, tortured working-class genius flowering in the rarefied hot-house atmosphere of Boston's Harvard University didn't quite engage me, despite some good acting.
The story is implausible in the extreme, as Damon's gifted character shyly but deliberately puts himself forward to get noticed by answering a difficult mathematical problem on display in the halls of the university and then follows his difficult progress to self- awareness which he ultimately achieves through encountering burn-out been there-done that psychologist Robin Williams and a pretty but feisty Anglophile student, played by Minnie Driver.
I was entertained by the movie but felt its mix of low comedy (profanity is frequent, especially when Damon gets down with his gang of fellow low-lifes which includes best mate Chuckie, played by Affleck) with heightened psychological drama didn't always convince. Naturally, Damon gets off to a frosty start with last-resort Willams and even more naturally they open up to each other before the tears really flow in one of the movie's well signposted climaxes further down the line. Ditto the obvious conclusion too when Damon finally lets his heart rule his head.
It's well acted although at times it seems pretty stagy, with lots of male-bonding and man- hugs on board. Damon is believable as the gifted misfit but overdoes the angst at times. I didn't quite get Affleck as the goofy sidekick and got the impression he was cast for the part because he wrote it. Williams is good as the broken-down professor but his winsomeness and adoration of his deceased wife grate a bit by the end, Spencer Tracy he's not and while Driver is okay in her part, I didn't really feel the attraction between her and Damon..
In the end, while the film engaged me enough, it did seem to me somewhat overrated and didn't quite take me fully on Will's journey to rehabilitation and spiritual redemption.