Today I will be doing a spoiler-free review of Good Will Hunting. Good Will Hunting is a movie that was released in 1997, and it is one of the most impactful movies I think I’ve ever watched. This movie follows Will Hunting, who has a genius-level IQ but chooses to work as a janitor at MIT. When he solves a difficult graduate-level math problem, his talents are discovered by a professor, who decides to help the misguided youth reach his potential. When Will is later arrested for attacking a police officer, the professor makes a deal to get leniency for him if he will get treatment from therapist Sean Maguire. This movie is led by Matt Damon as Will and Robin Williams as Sean, and I don’t think I can overstate enough how amazing these two are in this movie. Two performances that easily should’ve won an Oscar without any second thought. The journey you go on with Will and the relationships he has with his best friends but specifically Chuckie and his new girlfriend Skylar, is heartbreaking at times but also insanely heartwarming at other times. You get to see the journey of a young man who is lost and doesn’t believe he deserves happiness and the success he’s capable of reaching. The way they tell this story is such a great way to show young people that no matter where you come from or where you are in life, you are always capable of succeeding, and not just with jobs but also in relationships.
As I said earlier, the other lead in this movie is Robin Williams, and his story is just as sad as Will’s. His character is so complex and deep from everything he’s experienced in his life, and his trying to help Will navigate himself is so great to see. Robin is truly one of the best actors I’ve ever seen, and I definitely think this is his best movie and best performance that he’s ever done. This movie can teach people so many lessons, and there’s a reason it sticks with everyone who watches it. The therapy session scenes with Will and Sean are just so great to watch from an acting standpoint, as everything just feels so real. Those two just have such a special chemistry together that they were going off script and making each other laugh, which just added to the realism. Everything feeling so real also helped a lot with the deeper lessons that were being taught. These characters are also just extremely relatable for a lot of people and it just makes it easy to connect with the movie and its characters.
I always rate movies and I rate them based on 10 things in the movie. Those things are: acting, cinematography, pacing, score, themes, side characters, ending, plot, main character, and dialogue. I gave this movie a 96/100, and it’s just truly one of the best and most impactful movies I’ve ever seen. I truly think everyone 21 and under at the least should watch this movie once in their life. The acting from the leads, the story, the dialogue in the conversations between the two, and the ending are just all so great and work with one another insanely well.
