Good Will Hunting

Good Will Hunting is a movie about the inner struggle of the title character, Will Hunting (Matt Damon). Hunting is a custodian at prestigious MIT in Boston, MA who possesses extraordinary intelligence far beyond MIT students and even its world-renowned faculty. Hunting spends most of his time drinking and carousing with his three best friends Chuckie (Ben Affleck), Billy (Cole Hauser) and Morgan (Casey Affleck).

Viewers are aware of Hunting’s genius when he solves a mathematical quandary posed to MIT students by internationally recognized professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard). Only the best of the best are thought to have the ability to solve the equation. Hunting seems to do so with relative ease. Lambeau stumbles onto Hunting's work and tries to help him recognize his potential. He soon realizes that Hunting is dealing with deep-rooted issues that prohibit him to doing so and seeks to finds a psychiatrist that can help him.

Lambeau and Hunting go through several therapists before finding Sean McGuire (Robin Williams), a professor and a local junior college and former classmate and colleague of Lambeau. McGuire and Hunting's first meeting doesn't seemingly go well. Hunting begins to analyze McGuire, ultimately asking if he married the wrong woman. McGuire's wife died several years earlier. He takes deep offense to the accusation and asks Hunting to leave.

The next time we see Hunting and McGuire together is sitting on a park bench near a lake. It is during this scene that viewer are given full insight into the root of Hunting's interpersonal issues. McGuire tells Hunting that even though he has read many books and and has vast knowledge on on a variety of subjects, he has never experienced the beauty of the art at the Sistine Chapel, looked up at the ceiling painted by Michelangelo, woken up to a woman and felt truly happy, held a friends head while he died during war, loved a woman to the point of feeling totally vulnerable, and experienced true loss that only comes from loving something more than yourself. In other words, Hunting has never experienced life, he has only examined it from a distance.

Hunting meets Skylar (Minnie Driver) at a local bar. Skylar is a wealthy student and a very expensive Boston area university but accepts Hunting for who he is. They seemingly fall in love, and Skylar invites Hunting to come with her to California. Hunting walks away from the relationship just at the point where he would have to open himself fully to move forward. As viewers learn through the film, this is how Hunting has lived his life. He will not allow himself to be placed in a position where he can be hurt.

One of the most insightful scenes of the movie is when Chuckie tells McGuire that the best part of his day is the ten seconds after he knocks on McGuire's door each morning. He prays the McGuire will not be there, that he has realized that there is so much more available to him and he has reach out and grabbed it.

Hunting and McGuire make progress during the later stages of the film, each helping the other. Hunting learns to accept his past, that he was orphaned and abused. McGuire learns to accept his wife's death and realizes there is much more lift that he needs to experience.

The film concludes with Hunting going after Skylar, who has already moved to California and McGuire making arrangements to travel the world. Both realize that there is more to life than they have allowed themselves to experience.

The movie's structure is chronologic, meaning it is presented in the order of how events truly happen. Characterization of the film's participants is done primarily through external action and dialog. There is a significant amount of profanity in Good Will Hunting. In some films this would be a distraction but it fits the characters and backdrop of the movie.

The very first thought-provoking element of the Good Will Hunting is its tile. Viewers soon learn that it identifies the main character of the film, Will Hunting, but what is meant why Good Will Hunting. Hunting isn't recognizably good, at least in the early part of the film. Does it represent Hunting's potential? In my view it describes the virtue, or the good, of Hunting’s examination of his past and potential for the future.

While the film primary plot is concerned with Hunting's inner struggle to accept his past and move on with his life, there are many motifs, or small plot lines at work as well. Most apparent is the relationship between Hunting and Skylar. Will Hunting overcome his demons and open up to her before its too late. Another motif is the psychiatrist-patient relationship between Hunting and McGuire, a relationship that is therapeutic for both and later transitions into a deeper personal relationship. A third is Hunting's relationship with his neighborhood friends. Will these long-standing and safe relationships be too strong an influence and prevent Hunting from achieving his potential.

The film is packed with symbolism. The movie opens with Hunting sitting all alone in the corner of his mostly empty living room. The short scene is filmed from an elevated prospective. This scene symbolizes the fact that Hunting's lives a life of isolation and that he has painted himself in a corner.

In the early part of the movie, the Hunting and his friends meet up with a childhood rival at a children's baseball game and later track him and his friends down. The two groups get into a fight, interestingly filmed in slow motion by the movies director, Gus Van Sant. The slow motion footage, intertwined with periodic moments of regular speed action, is relevant to the film in two ways. First, the slow motion signifies that Hunting and his friends lives are going nowhere fast. The period moments of regular speed reminds the viewer that the action is actually very violent, a fact that is somewhat lost in slow motion.

When Hunting and Lambeau first visit McGuire, they walk down several steps to get to Lambeau's office. This is shown several times throughout the film and represent that Hunting is going deep within himself for self-realization. In the later stages of the film, Hunting and McGuire walk up the step together, walking out of view of the camera. This is meant to signify that both have overcome, or climbed out of their respective inner turmoil.

We see a painting on McGuire's wall when he meets Hunting for the first time. The painting is of a man in a small boat in rough waters. Hunting tells McGuire that the man is looking for any port in the storm and that is whey he became a psychiatrist. He also says it leads him to think that McGuire married the wrong woman. The painting is similarly symbolic for both characters. It represents how the lives of both are caught in a storm. Life is crashing in around them and they don't know where to go next, to which direction is the right port for them. The fact that both have issues that need examining and resolution is later reinforced when both are filmed from directly above at the beginning of one of their sessions.

Hunting's friends buy him a car in the later part of the film. It is an ugly car with rusted paint and ripped interior. The car is meant to symbolize the fact that Hunting is ready to accept his potential and move on with his life. The condition of the car reminds the viewer that his life is far from perfect but that scars and all he will keep moving forward.

The final element of symbolism is in the last scene when we see Hunting's car driving on the highway. He is driving to find Skylar, to “see about a girl. The landscape is bright with green grass and full trees. This symbolizes that Hunting is emotionally and spiritually healthy and the storms of his life, like those in the painting on McGuire's wall, have largely subsided.