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Here, Matt Damon is the world's smartest young ex-con. He can read a book in about two minutes, and can solve the world's toughest mathematical equations. But what he'd really like to do is drink with his buddies, where he's number two in the pecking order behind Ben Affleck. Trying to put him on the diligent path are heralded math professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) and shrink Robin Williams. Minnie Driver is Damon's infatuated girlfriend.
How others will see it. This ultimately feel-good movie warmed many hearts in 1998. Probably the reason for this was the sometimes effective script, and director Gus Van Sant's skill in establishing interesting relationships between Damon and Affleck, Williams, and Driver. Audiences apparently had little difficulty with the stereotype of genius burdened by mental illness, here in the form of violence, and a reluctance to leave the protection of his little Southie gang.
How I felt about it. Along with Damon and Affleck, who momentarily shed their reputation of lunkhead pretty boys, the winners here were Robin Williams, who finally found a realistic film role, and Minnie Driver, whose strong supporting performance opened the door (for a while) to leading roles (Beautiful, Return to Me).
Good Will Hunting is a mixed bag. Certainly, it is better than most movies, and it's much better than it should be. It should be bad: early scenes include a slow-motion fist fight instigated by our genius hero against someone he disliked in kindergarten (I don't even remember the names of the people I went to kindergarten with, much less could recognize them fifteen years later). This is followed by an "I'm more learned than you are" conflagration with an immensely dislikable student, ending up with a really bad pun about apples.
But patience with the early, nearly unwatchable scenes is rewarded. The turning point for the film is the emergence of first-billed Robin Williams, cast against type as the most rational character in the film (at least, aside from a preposterous moment when he attempts to choke Damon, not that he's the only one who wanted to).
Williams is able to ground Damon, not because he's smarter, but because is willing to wait Damon out. Damon eventually decides spilling his guts to a newfound friend is more entertaining than challenging the good doctor to a game of clock watching.
Although the film does pick up, it never goes full steam, because the script makes errors of excess. Damon's explanation about why he wants to take a plum NSA job begins well enough with an expression of concern over the village that would be destroyed by military intelligence. Then it takes wild turns into the Exxon Valdez disaster, and the relocation of U.S. jobs into a terrorist-supporting nation (as if!)
Damon's male bonding with Williams includes the revelation that Damon asked his father to beat him with a wrench, to prove to him that he could take it. Williams, on the other hand, provoked beatings so that other family members would be spared. Abuse becomes noble under such circumstances.
After much handwringing about Damon's wasted potential as a janitor, construction worker, or drinking buddy, Damon finally decides (under encouragement) to do something important with his life. He goes to California to shack up with his girlfriend. So much for masterwork from the genius. But at least Minnie Driver will get her homework done.