Good Will Hunting

With a violent and troubling past, Will Hunting the genius MIT janitor finds himself in some trouble he can’t talk himself out of. After agreeing to meeting with a psychiatrist once a week, Will saves himself from spending some time in the slammer. Whether or not Will knows it, he is on the journey of turning his life around and using his genius ability for what it is intended. Although I have never seen this movie before it was easy to see why it was nominated for so many Oscar Awards. The story background and overall message I feel Affleck and Damon are trying to get across are very important for any of the people that may come into contact with real life Will Huntings’. As the article, “Two Thumbs Up, Five Stars, and an Oscar?” says gifted children need an array of people in their lives that help nurture their astonishing abilities. I believe an example of this is shown in the movie when after seeing five shrinks and running them all out, Will finally meets his match and is able to confide in someone that is actually going to help him with his anger and aggression problems. Through the weekly meetings with Sean Maguire, Will takes down his walls and is able to finally see what his life is intended for. Sean also helps Will develop into a whole person and love somebody that loves him in return.
The article “Holden Caulfield, Alex Portnoy, and Good Will Hunting: Coming of Age in American Films and Novels,” by Lawrence E. Ziewacz shows a long and drawn out detailed description of the movie. Some critics say that Gus Van Sant had lost his edge as leading director (McGurk, Eklias). Others like Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle found “Van Sant’s off-center approach” helped “make an odd collection of characters come alive.” I would have to disagree with the critics that said this wasn’t some of Van Sant’s best work because it won two Oscars Awards and was nominated for many other awards along the way. I do, however, agree with the article when it says the ending is a bit too perfect and the final outcome is pretty predictable. With that being said the point of this movie is very beneficial if understood completely. The point is to use your abilities to the fullest and to share the experiences with someone else that is very special to you.
In the article “Too smart for their own good,” author Patrick McCormick explains the importance of not over-stressing that your kids should get good grades. He believes that if you do overstress this it may be threatening to steal a portion of your sons or daughters childhood. The older they get the more you can stress it but you have to allow your kids to be kids while they still can. I would tie what the author is saying in this article to the movie by saying this it closely resembles what I believe Will is thinking. Will doesn’t want to lose a part of his life in school learning things that he could teach himself. He is also very independent and feels like he doesn’t need anyone’s help. Right away he says he doesn’t need therapy but in the end I think he realizes and is very happy that he ended up going and getting it.
The things I noticed about the movie were that the acting in the fight between Will and his posse versus his elementary bully was very poor. When the actors would throw punches you could tell they weren’t even hitting the other person. Other than that I thought the acting was very good. I believe the director made the choice of having a lot of scenes where Will would manipulate other people because this way it would seem that over the course of the movie you would see Will grow up. I also feel that in this way Will became a more whole person and a contributing member of society. The questions that this movie left remaining were as follows: Did Will and Skyler ever end up back together? What happened to Will’s friends after he left? And what ever happened to Sean after he went away? A part in the movie that was emotional to me was when Will and Skyler got in a fight. Skyler said that if Will doesn’t love her he should just say it, and he said he didn’t. It was emotional because throughout the movie you could tell how much Will liked Skyler and you could just tell he was throwing the relationship away because he liked to say goodbye before people said goodbye to him. A thing in the movie that was interesting to me was Will’s progression of the movie. In the beginning of the movie I felt that Will was very childish and as the movie progressed I felt like he became a more whole person and also became a man. These last two examples were times that made me think and react to the things that were going on in the movie.