Good Will Hunting
5 out of 5 stars
Family appropriateness rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Rated R
-A few sexual references including one scene in which a character tells a joke about oral sex, and several scenes in which a couple are in bed together. No nudity or sex is shown.
-Strong language throughout, including f-words.
-Mild violence from a fist fight which shows a little blood.
Introduction: Robin Williams's passing is nothing short of tragic. He was an actor who brought a lot of warmth and depth into many of his roles. In an effort to celebrate his life, I will be reviewing some of the films for which he received the most praise.
Review: If everyone saw "Good Will Hunting," the world would be a better place. It is an inspirational story about helping people and moving on with life.
Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is a genius who has been holding himself back. Instead of dedicating himself to become really successful, he works as a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). One day he sees a problem outside of Professor Gerald Lambeau's (Stellan Skarsgård) classroom, which is incredibly difficult to even the most intelligent people. Hunting's genius is at a level beyond anyone else's, and he solves the problem before Lambeau's students have a chance.
After having started a fight, Hunting ends up in jail, and Lambeau works out a deal with him: the professor will bail him out only if he promises to help with scholarly work and undergo counseling.
Hunting agrees to the deal but does not want to see a therapist. He knows how to get under the skin of the professionals Lambeau hires, and he does so, which makes them not want to work with him. When they all refuse to help Hunting, the professor hires his old college roommate, Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), who ends up being the perfect person to help the prodigy.
The role of the good psychologist is one of Robin Williams's most critically acclaimed performances. In fact, it won him an Oscar, which was very deserving. The character has recently undergone some tragedy in his life, and Williams does a great job portraying the emotional turmoil this causes, while still adding warmth to Hunting's life. Not only is he the psychologist, he becomes Will Hunting's best friend, and he is an example to everyone watching the film of what that entails.
The thing Maguire does differently than other psychologists is he spends time developing a relationship with Hunting. The others tackle his problems head-on and attempt to cure him in the first session. Hunting sees through their façade and automatically does not trust them. Maguire approaches the situation by getting to know who Hunting is as a person.
When I served a Mormon mission, there was a photo in one of the training manuals of an entire iceberg, both top and bottom. Most of it is underwater and cannot be seen. The manual compared the visual to people. They often look a certain way and act a certain way, but there is so much more underneath that no one else can see.
That is ultimately what this film is about. Both Hunting and Maguire are complete icebergs, who wind up helping each other with their deep problems. Hunting does not want to move on with his life. He is perfectly comfortable staying exactly where he is even though he has the potential to do more. In fact, he wants to do more. This frustrates Lambeau to no end because he hates seeing this wasted potential, but he has no idea how to approach the situation.
Because of their differences in approach, there is drama between Lambeau and Maguire. The MIT professor is impatient. He thinks all of Hunting's problems should just be solvable, and he keeps pressuring Maguire. However, the psychologist knows that something as important as an individual's psyche takes time.
Maguire also has issues that hold him back from reaching his full potential. The tragedy he just went through makes him not want to move on. It is through counseling Hunting that he ends up helping himself as much as he helps his friend.
"It's not your fault" (spoilers): One of the most memorable scenes in this film is one that I frankly did not understand when I first saw it over a year ago. However, it ends up being the solution to everything.
There are ultimately two reasons Hunting holds himself back. The first is because he grew up as an orphan, and the people he became close to ended up leaving him. He is afraid that after things go well, he will be abandoned again.
The other reason is he does not feel like he deserves happiness. He had undergone some intense physical abuse in some of the foster homes he lived in, and he feels guilty because of it. The key scene is the one in which Maguire lovingly repeats "It's not your fault" several times as he goes in for a hug.
When I first saw this, I did not know what to make of it. In my mind, of course it is not his fault. It is the fault of some horrible people he came into contact with as a child. This caused me to look at some message boards on IMDB in which people with different experiences than mine said that the feeling of guilt is one that many abused children feel.
This is something I did not understand because I grew up with two parents who love me and my siblings. I had not gone through the physical abuse that Will Hunting did.
The lack of sympathy on my part ends up being a major theme of this film. There is a speech that Maguire gives about how Hunting has a lot of knowledge from books, but he does not have a lot of knowledge from experience. It is a great speech, and it gives the reason why it is wrong to judge other people. It is impossible to know exactly what they are going through unless you walk a mile in their shoes.
What is interesting is Hunting says "I know" after Maguire tells him "It's not your fault" the first time. It is something that Hunting knows but has never internalized or believed until that moment.
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