Good Will Hunting is a 1997 drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, and Stellan Skarsgård. Written by Affleck and Damon, and with Damon in the title role, the film follows 20-year-old South Boston laborer Will Hunting, a genius who is forced to see a therapist (Williams) and study advanced mathematics with a renowned professor (Skarsgård) in order to avoid jail time. Through his therapy sessions, Will re-evaluates his relationships with his best friend (Affleck) and his girlfriend (Driver) while confronting his emotional issues and making decisions about his future.

Good Will Hunting was both a critical and financial success. It grossed over US$225 million during its theatrical run, more than twenty-two times its $10 million budget. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning two: Best Supporting Actor for Williams and Best Original Screenplay for Affleck and Damon.

Plot[link]

20-year-old Will Hunting (Matt Damon) of South Boston has a genius-level intellect but chooses to work as a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and spend his free time with his friends Chuckie Sullivan (Ben Affleck), Billy McBride (Cole Hauser) and Morgan O'Mally (Casey Affleck). When Fields Medal-winning combinatorialist Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård) posts a difficult problem taken from algebraic graph theory as a challenge for his graduate students to solve, Will solves the problem quickly but anonymously. Lambeau posts a much more difficult problem and chances upon Will solving it, but Will runs off. Will meets Skylar (Minnie Driver), a British student about to graduate from Harvard University and pursue a graduate degree at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

Will is faced with incarceration after assaulting a man who had bullied him as a child. Lambeau arranges for Will to forgo jail time if he agrees to study mathematics under Lambeau's supervision and to see a therapist. Will agrees, but treats his first few therapists with contempt and they refuse to work with him. In desperation, Lambeau calls on Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), his estranged college roommate who also grew up in South Boston and now teaches psychology at Bunker Hill Community College. Unlike the other therapists, Sean pushes back at Will and overcomes his defense mechanisms, and after a few unproductive sessions Will begins to open up.

Will is particularly struck by Sean's story of how he met his wife by giving up his ticket to the historic sixth game of the 1975 World Series after falling in love at first sight. Sean doesn't regret his decision, nor does he regret the final years of his marriage when his wife was dying of cancer. This encourages Will to build a relationship with Skylar, though he lies to her about his past and is reluctant to introduce her to his friends or show her his run-down neighborhood. Will also challenges Sean to take an objective look at his own life, since Sean has been unable to move on from his wife's death.

Will begins to chafe under Lambeau's high expectations and makes a mockery of job interviews that Lambeau arranges for him. Sean cautions Lambeau against pushing the boy too hard. Will walks in on a heated argument between the two over his future and it greatly upsets him. When Skylar asks Will to move to California with her, he panics and pushes her away, revealing that he is an orphan and that his foster father physically abused him. Skylar tells Will that she loves him, but he denies loving her and then leaves her. He next storms out on Lambeau, dismissing the mathematical research he has been doing. Sean points out that Will is so adept at anticipating future failure in his interpersonal relationships that he deliberately sabotages them in order to avoid the risk of emotional pain. When Will refuses to give an honest reply about what he wants to do with his life, Sean shows him the door. Will tells Chuckie he wants to be a laborer for the rest of his life; Chuckie responds that it would be an insult to his friends for Will to waste his potential, and that his fondest wish is that Will leaves to pursue something greater. Will decides to accept one of the job offers arranged by Lambeau.

At another therapy session, Sean and Will share that they were both victims of child abuse, and Sean helps Will to accept that the abuse he suffered wasn't his fault. Having helped Will overcome his problems, Sean reconciles with Lambeau and decides to take a sabbatical to travel the world. When Will's friends present him with a rebuilt Chevrolet Nova for his 21st birthday, he decides to pass on his lucrative job offers and drive to California to reunite with Skylar.

Cast[link]

• Matt Damon as Will Hunting
• Robin Williams as Dr. Sean Maguire
• Ben Affleck as Chuckie Sullivan
• Stellan Skarsgård as Professor Gerald Lambeau
• Minnie Driver as Skylar
• Casey Affleck as Morgan O'Mally
• Cole Hauser as Billy McBride
• John Mighton as Tom
• George Plimpton as Dr. Henry Lipkin, Psychologist

Production[link]

Development[link]

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon originally wrote the screenplay as a thriller: Young man in the rough-and-tumble streets of South Boston who possesses a superior intelligence is targeted by the FBI to become a G-Man. Castle Rock Entertainment president Rob Reiner later urged them to drop the thriller aspect of the story and to focus the relationship between Will Hunting (Damon) and his psychologist (Williams). At Reiner's request, noted screenwriter William Goldman read the script and further suggested that the film's climax ought to be Will's decision to follow his girlfriend Skylar to California. Goldman has consistently denied the persistent rumor that he wrote Good Will Hunting or acted as a script doctor.^[1] In his book, Which Lie Did I Tell?, Goldman writes that after reading the script and spending a day with the writers, his only contribution was agreeing with comments that Rob Reiner had already made. He writes, "I think the reason the world was so anxious to believe Matt Damon and Ben Affleck didn't write their script was simple jealousy. They were young and cute and famous; kill the fuckers."^[2]

Castle Rock bought the script for $675,000 against $775,000, meaning that Affleck and Damon would stand to earn an additional $100,000 if the film was produced and they retained sole writing credit. However, studios balked at the idea of Affleck and Damon in the lead roles, with many studio executives citing that they wanted Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. At the time Damon and Affleck were meeting at Castle Rock, director Kevin Smith was working with Affleck on Mallrats and with both Affleck and Damon on Chasing Amy.^[3] Seeing that Affleck and Damon were having trouble with Castle Rock, Smith and his producer partner Scott Mosier brought the script to Miramax, which eventually caused the two to receive co-executive producer credits for Hunting. The script was put into turnaround and Miramax bought the rights from Castle Rock.

After buying the rights from Castle Rock, Miramax gave the green light to put the film into production. Several well-known filmmakers were originally considered to direct, including Mel Gibson, Michael Mann and Steven Soderbergh. Originally Affleck asked Kevin Smith if he was interested in directing. Smith declined, saying they needed a "good director" and that he only directs things he writes and is not much of a visual director. Affleck and Damon later chose Gus Van Sant for the job, whose work in previous films like Drugstore Cowboy (1989) had left a favorable impression on the fledgling screenwriters. Miramax was persuaded and hired Van Sant to direct the film.^{[citation needed]}

Filming[link]

Good Will Hunting was filmed on location in the Greater Boston area and Toronto over five months in 1996. Although the story is set in Boston, much of the film was shot at locations in Toronto, with the University of Toronto standing in for MIT and Harvard University and the classroom scenes being filmed at McLennan Physical Laboratories^{[4][unreliable source]} (of the University of Toronto) and Central Technical School. The interior bar scenes set in South Boston ("Southie") were shot on location at Woody's L St. Tavern.^{[citation needed]} The footage during the closing credits is along the Massachusetts Turnpike in Stockbridge, heading west toward the New York border.

The cast engaged in considerable improvisation in rehearsals. Robin Williams, Ben Affleck and Minnie Driver each made significant contributions to their characters. Robin Williams' last line in the film, as well as the therapy scene in which he talks about his character's wife's little idiosyncrasies, were both ad-libbed. The therapy scene took everyone by surprise. According to Damon's commentary in the DVD version of the film, this caused Johnny (the cameraman) to laugh so hard that the camera's POV can actually be seen moving up and down slightly as it shows Damon breaking character by also laughing so hard.

Director Gus Van Sant says in the DVD commentary that, had he known just how successful the film was going to be, he would have left at least a couple of edited scenes intact that were cut purely for considerations of length. One of these involves Skylar's visit to Chuckie in hopes of shedding light on some of Will's eccentricities that Will himself is unwilling to discuss.

The film is dedicated to the memory of poet Allen Ginsberg and writer William S. Burroughs, both of whom died in 1997.

Reception[link]

Box office[link]

In the film's opening weekend in limited release, it earned $272,912. In its January 1998 wide-release opening weekend, it earned $10,261,471. It went on to gross $138,433,435 in North America for a total worldwide gross of $225,900,000.

Critical response[link]

Good Will Hunting has received widespread critical acclaim. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 68 reviews, with an average score of 8/10, making the film a "Certified Fresh" on the website's rating system.^[5] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 70, based on 28 reviews, which indicates "Generally favorable reviews".^[6]

Awards and accolades[link]

70th Academy Awards

• Won: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - Robin Williams
• Won: Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) - Ben Affleck & Matt Damon
• Nominated: Academy Award for Best Picture
• Nominated: Academy Award for Best Actor - Matt Damon
• Nominated: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress - Minnie Driver
• Nominated: Academy Award for Best Director - Gus Van Sant
• Nominated: Academy Award for Best Song - Elliott Smith (song "Miss Misery")
• Nominated: Academy Award for Original Music Score - Danny Elfman
• Nominated: Academy Award for Film Editing - Pietro Scalia

55th Golden Globe Awards

• Won: Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture - Ben Affleck & Matt Damon
• Nominated: Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama
• Nominated: Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama - Matt Damon
• Nominated: Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture - Robin Williams

Other Major Awards/Nominations

• Won: Silver Bear for an outstanding single achievement (Matt Damon) - Berlin Film Festival^[7]
• Nominated: Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures - Gus Van Sant
• Nominated: Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen - Ben Affleck & Matt Damon

American Film Institute[link]

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs:
  • Miss Misery - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated

Soundtrack[link]

"Miss Misery," written and recorded for the film by late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but lost to "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic. Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" is also featured in the closing credits after "Miss Misery," but does not appear on the soundtrack.

While Danny Elfman's score was nominated for an Oscar, only two cues appear on the film's soundtrack release. Elfman's "Weepy Donuts" was used on NBC's The Today Show on September 11, 2006, while Matt Lauer spoke during the opening credits.

1. Elliott Smith - "Between the Bars" (Orchestral)
2. Jeb Loy Nichols - "As the Rain"
3. Elliott Smith - "Angeles"
4. Elliott Smith - "No Name #3"
5. The Waterboys - "Fisherman's Blues"
6. Luscious Jackson - "Why Do I Lie?"
7. Danny Elfman - "Will Hunting" (Main Titles)
8. Elliott Smith - "Between the Bars"
9. Elliott Smith - "Say Yes"
10. Gerry Rafferty - "Baker Street"
11. Andru Donalds - "Somebody's Baby"
12. The Dandy Warhols - "Boys Better"
13. Al Green - "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"
14. Elliott Smith - "Miss Misery"
15. Danny Elfman - "Weepy Donuts"

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Good Will Hunting

• Good Will Hunting at the Internet Movie Database
• Good Will Hunting at the TCM Movie Database
• Good Will Hunting at AllRovi
• Good Will Hunting at Box Office Mojo
• Good Will Hunting at Rotten Tomatoes
• Screenplay on IMSDb