Good Will Falling

Rating: Null/10 (2 October 1999)

Falling flat is what this movie does, ever since the pretentious beginning: the attempt to capitalize on a presumed genius from the slums falls short of the target simply because while saying f*** every two words is true to life for more people than we want to know, a universal 'genius' as the one portrayed by Damon is nowhere to be seen, or conceived. The kind of 'knowledge' displayed by Damon is mostly fruit of dumb and trite photographic memory, and does not have the least to do with 'intelligence': as for the mathematical part it's pure fantasy, because Ramanujan may well have lived and impressed 100 years ago (mind me, he still impresses now), but would have a much harder time if he lived today. Speaking as a mathematician, it is shocking to see how carefully the movie tries to depict low life, and how easily it falls into the most stereotypical misconceptions about 'higher learning'. Overindulgence in realistic reproduction of a southie's foul language and scars, flanked by stale and flat portrayal of the MIT mathematics department may say it all: the script authors obviously share more with f*** than with f(x).