FOR CR7YING OUT LOUD!
Good Will Hunting is a great movie for many reasons. Robin Williams’ outstanding performance, Ben Affleck’s petty squabbling with his on-screen and actual brother, the fact that Affleck and Matt Damon’s Oscar-winning screenplay is actually (a little bit) autobiographical – both hailing from Massachusetts, Affleck’s father was a janitor at Harvard, while his mother went to the university, as did Damon, before dropping out. The film is a great watch, a classic and pleasing arc of self-discovery, with a happy-ish ending that avoids the pitfall of being too twee. The protagonist (Will, played by Damon) is a complete eejit – sucker-punching people, fighting police, insulting his mentor’s dead wife, ignoring the time and energy of others while taking his seemingly god-given talent for granted – but we end up rooting for him anyway, because genius is a bewitching and beguiling thing.
