immediate classic that propelled Affleck & Damon to stardom

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2013)

This is a difficult film to rate as the fact that Affleck and Damon wrote it and it did so well, and the screenplay is so good is distracting. All the performances are good but it is the relationship between Matt Damon's Will and Robin Williams' Psychologist Sean that is the most compelling and the genius of the piece. Will Hunting is a broken yet incredibly intelligent young man who's not had the breaks in life, finds inspiration and meaning in his sessions with a compulsory therapist.
Minnie Driver as the love interest gives one of her best roles but isn't a main character but the catalyst for some of Will's breakthroughs. Affleck as the self-sacrificing best friend plays a typical character for him, and I do wonder how they decided who would play which character given that they chose the best combination; Matt Damon as a boy-next-door genius and brokenness was perfect given that Affleck would have been more striking, pretty-boy privilege, bringing his angry intelligence (see Boiler Room) which wouldn't have been so attracting nor so inducing of empathy. Gus Van Sant's straight almost dull direction - given his spacey trippy and arty direction in other films - is ideal for the story and his choices with the screenplay for the style of the fast-paced dialogue, especially in the Williams/Damon therapy sessions, was superb. Clearly Affleck and Damon have a very clear and insightful knowledge and experience of psychology. However, the rest of the film - which the dialogue/screenplay distracts from - is average, with some special moments, but predictable and a bit Hollywood. It is, however, rightly, an immediate modern classic and Robin Williams and Matt Damon (and Ben Affleck for the writing credit with Damon) rightly were praised to high heaven for their performances. A great film in parts but a good film in general.