Good Will Hunting

Infobox Film
name = Good Will Hunting


caption= original film poster
imdb_id = 0119217
producer = Lawrence Bender
director = Gus Van Sant
writer = Matt Damon
Ben Affleck
starring = Matt Damon
Robin Williams
Ben Affleck
Minnie Driver
Stellan Skarsgård
music = Danny Elfman
Elliott Smith
cinematography = Jean-Yves Escoffier
editing = Pietro Scalia
distributor = Miramax Films
released = November 28, 1997 (select cities)
December 5, 1997 (national)
runtime = 126 min.
language = English
budget = $10,000,000
gross = $225,900,000

"Good Will Hunting" is a 1997 film directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, both of whom star in the film.

Set in Boston, Massachusetts, it tells the story of Will Hunting (Damon), a troubled young Irish Catholic man from South Boston who, although a prodigy and autodidact, works as a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, despite the fact that his knowledge of and facility with higher mathematics far outstrips that of anyone in the university. Will must learn to overcome his deep fear of abandonment in order to learn how to trust and love the people who care about him.

"Good Will Hunting" was a financial success, earned widespread critical praise and several awards, and launched Damon and Affleck into prominence.

Production

Affleck and Damon originally wrote the screenplay as a thriller: Young man in the rough-and-tumble streets of South Boston, who possesses a superior intelligence, is targeted by the FBI to become a G-Man. Castle Rock Entertainment president Rob Reiner later urged them to drop the thriller aspect of the story and to focus the relationship between Will Hunting (Damon) and his psychologist (Williams). At Reiner's request, noted screenwriter William Goldman read the script and further suggested that the film's climax ought to be Will's decision to follow his girlfriend Skylar (Driver) to California. Goldman has denied widely-spread rumors that he wrote "Good Will Hunting" or acted as a script doctor. [see Goldman's memoir "Which Lie Did I Tell?"]

Castle Rock bought the script for $675,000 against $775,000, meaning that Affleck and Damon would stand to earn an additional $100,000 if the film was produced and they retained sole writing credit. However, studios balked at the idea of Affleck and Damon in the lead roles. At the time Damon and Affleck were meeting at Castle Rock, director Kevin Smith was working with Affleck on "Mallrats" and with both Affleck and Damon on "Chasing Amy." [Smith's comments on the "Mallrats" DVD audio commentary] Seeing that Affleck and Damon were having trouble with Castle Rock, Smith and his producer partner Scott Mosier brought the script to Miramax, which eventually caused the two to receive co-executive producer credits for "Hunting". The script was put into turnaround, and Miramax bought the rights from Castle Rock.

After buying the rights from Castle Rock, Miramax gave the green light to put the film into production. While several well-known filmmakers were originally considered to direct, including Kevin Smith, Mel Gibson, Michael Mann and Steven Soderbergh, Affleck and Damon's choice for the job was Gus Van Sant, whose work in previous films like "Drugstore Cowboy" (1989) had left a favorable impression on the fledgling screenwriters. Miramax was persuaded and hired Van Sant to direct the film.

"Good Will Hunting" was filmed on location in the Greater Boston area and Toronto over five months in 1996. Although the story is set in Boston, much of the film was shot at locations in Toronto, with the University of Toronto standing in for MIT and Harvard, and the classroom scenes being filmed at McLennan Physical Laboratories and Central Technical School. The interior bar scenes set in South Boston ("Southie") were shot on location at "Woody's L St. Tavern". The cast engaged in considerable improvisation in rehearsals; Robin Williams, Ben Affleck and Minnie Driver each made significant contributions to their characters. Robin Williams' last line in the film, as well as the therapy scene in which he talks about his character's wife's little idiosyncrasies, were both ad-libbed. The therapy scene took everyone by surprise. According to Damon's voice-over narration in the DVD version of the movie, this caused "Johnny" (the cameraman) to laugh so hard that the camera's POV can actually be seen moving up and down slightly as it shows Damon breaking character by also laughing so hard.

Director Gus Van Sant says in the DVD voice-over that, had he known just how successful the movie was going to be, he would have left at least a couple of edited scenes intact that were cut purely for considerations of length. One of these involves Skylar's visit to Chuckie in hopes of shedding light on some of Will's eccentricities that Will himself is unwilling to discuss.

;Filming locations
* The location of the footage during the closing credits is along the Massachusetts Turnpike in West Stockbridge, heading west towards the New York border. When the car passes under a bridge, the sign on the bridge shows that it is Pittsfield Road in West Stockbridge, which is also Route 41, and the scene is filmed in the westbound lanes because a sign announces the coming of a "Toll Plaza" east of the New York state border.

The film is dedicated to the memory of poet Allen Ginsberg and writer William S. Burroughs, both of whom died in 1997.

Plot

Though Will Hunting (Matt Damon) has genius-level intelligence (such as a talent for memorizing facts and an intuitive ability to prove sophisticated mathematical theorems), he works as a janitor at MIT and lives alone in a sparsely furnished apartment in an impoverished South Boston neighborhood. An abused foster child, he subconsciously blames himself for his unhappy upbringing and turns this self-loathing into a form of self-sabotage in both his professional and emotional lives. Hence, he is unable to maintain either a steady job or a steady romantic relationship.

In the first week of class, Will solves a difficult graduate-level math problem that Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård), a Fields Medalist and combinatorialist, left on a chalkboard as a challenge to his students, hoping someone might solve the problem by the semester's end. Everyone at MIT wonders who solved it, and Lambeau puts another problem on the board -- one that took him and his colleagues two years to prove. Will is discovered in the act of solving the problem, and Lambeau initially thinks that Will is vandalizing the board and chases him away. When Will turns out to have solved it correctly, Lambeau tries to track Will down. Meanwhile, Will attacks a youth who had bullied him 15 years ago in kindergarten, and he now faces imprisonment after attacking a police officer who was responding to the fracas. Realizing Will might have the potential to be a great mathematician, such as the genius Évariste Galois, Lambeau goes to Will's trial and intervenes on his behalf, offering him a choice: either Will can go to jail, or he can be released into Lambeau's personal supervision, where he must study mathematics and see a therapist, as well. Will chooses the latter even though he seems to believe that he does not need therapy.

Five psychologists fail to connect with Will. Out of sheer desperation, Lambeau finally calls on psychologist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), an estranged old friend and MIT classmate of his who grew up in the same neighborhood as Will. Sean differs from his five predecessors in that he pushes back at Will and is eventually able to get through to Will and his hostile, sarcastic defense mechanisms. Will is particularly struck when Sean tells him how he gave up his ticket to see the Red Sox in the 1975 World Series (thus missing Carlton Fisk's famous home run in Game 6) in order to meet and spend time with a stranger in a bar, who would later become his wife. This encourages Will to try to establish a relationship with Skylar (Minnie Driver), a young woman he met at a bar near Harvard University.

This doctor-patient relationship, however, is far from one-sided. Will challenges Sean in the same way that Sean is encouraging Will to take a good, hard, objective look at himself and his life. Sean's own pathology is that he is unable and unwilling to even consider a second romantic relationship in the aftermath of his first beloved wife's premature death from cancer several years before. This may well be the primary reason why Sean agrees to take Will on as a client.

Meanwhile, Lambeau pushes Will so hard to excel that Will eventually refuses to go to the job interviews that Lambeau arranged for him for positions that might prove challenging, even to his immense talents. Lambeau and Sean also squabble about Will's future. Will's accidental witnessing of this furious argument somehow acts as a catalyst for his decision to enter a deeper level of trust and sharing with Sean. He has apparently realized from this event that the situation is a little more complex than Will vs. The World. He now sees that these mentors are every bit as human, fallible, and conflicted as he is.

Skylar asks Will to move to California with her, where she will begin medical school at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Will panics at the thought. Skylar then expresses support about his past, which is received as patronization and triggers a tantrum in which Will storms out of the dorm while still in a state of undress. He shrugs off the work he's doing for Lambeau as "a joke," even though Lambeau is incapable of solving some of these theorems and admittedly envies Will. Lambeau begs Will not to throw it all away, but Will walks out on him anyway.

Sean points out that Will is so adept at anticipating future failure in his romantic relationships, that he either allows them to fizzle out or deliberately bails, in order to avoid the risk of future emotional pain. When Will then provides a whimsical reply to Sean's very serious query of what he wants to do with his life, Sean simply shows him the door. When Will further tells his best friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck) that he wants to be a laborer for the rest of his life, Chuckie becomes brutally honest with Will: he feels it's an "insult" for Will to waste his potential as a laborer, and that his recurring wish is to knock on Will's door and find that he just isn't there.

Will goes to another therapy session, where he and Sean share that they were both victims of child abuse. At first, Will is defensive and resentful at Sean's repeated reassurances that "It's not your fault," but he eventually breaks down in tearful acknowledgment. Finally, after much self-reflection, Will decides to cease being a victim of his own inner demons and to take charge of his life. When his buddies present him with a rebuilt Chevrolet Nova for his 21st birthday, he decides to go to California and reunite with Skylar, setting aside his lucrative corporate and government job offers. Will leaves a brief note for Sean explaining what he's doing, using one of Sean's own quips, "I had to go see about a girl." Sean also leaves to travel the world, though not before reconciling with Lambeau. The movie ends as Chuckie poignantly discovers, in fulfillment of his own long-standing wish, that Will has left for a better life. Will is then shown starting his life-affirming drive to California for a new beginning with Skylar and a leap into the Great Unknown.

Cast

*Matt Damon as Will Hunting
*Robin Williams as Sean Maguire
*Ben Affleck as Chuckie Sullivan
*Stellan Skarsgård as Gerald Lambeau
*Minnie Driver as Skylar
*Casey Affleck as Morgan O'Mally
*Cole Hauser as Billy McBride
*John Mighton as Tom

Reception

"Good Will Hunting" received many positive reviews from film critics: It has a 97% "Fresh" rating according to film review compilation website Rotten Tomatoes. [ [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/good_will_hunting/ Good Will Hunting Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes ] ] , and was nominated for many awards (see below).

According to the box office reports, "Good Will Hunting" grossed $225 million internationally (twenty-two times the film's budget). Although the film's limited release at the end of 1997 (traditional for likely Oscar candidates) merely hinted at its future success, the film caught on, thanks to good reviews and a strong reception by the American public. The film received international praise, in part due to the acting of Robin Williams and Matt Damon, both of whom were nominated for Academy Awards for the film, with Williams winning.

Box office

Released in US: December 5, 1997 (limited), January 9, 1998 (wide)
Opening Weekend: $272,912 (limited), $10,261,471 (wide)
Studio: Miramax
Total US Gross: $138,433,435
Production Budget: $10,000,000
Rentals: $53,988,000
Worldwide Gross: $225,900,000

oundtrack

Infobox Album |
Name = Good Will Hunting: Music from the Miramax Motion Picture [ [http://www.amazon.com/Good-Will-Hunting-Miramax-Picture/dp/B000002TM0 Amazon.com: Good Will Hunting: Music from the Miramax Motion ] ]
Type = Soundtrack
Artist = Various artists


Released = December 2, 1997
Recorded =
Genre = Soundtrack, Indie rock, Acoustic rock, Indie folk
Length =
Label = Capitol
Producer =
Reviews = |
Last album =
This album =
Next album =
#Elliott Smith — "Between the Bars" (Orchestral)
#Jeb Loy Nichols — "As the Rain"
#Elliott Smith — "Angeles"
#Elliott Smith — "No Name #3"
#The Waterboys — "Fisherman's Blues"
#Luscious Jackson — "Why Do I Lie?"
#Danny Elfman & Steve Bartek — "Will Hunting (Main Titles)"
#Elliott Smith — "Between the Bars"
#Elliott Smith — "Say Yes"
#Gerry Rafferty — "Baker Street"
#Andru Donalds — "Somebody's Baby"
#The Dandy Warhols — "Boys Better"
#Al Green — "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"
#Elliott Smith — "Miss Misery"
#Danny Elfman & Steve Bartek — "Weepy Donuts"

"Miss Misery" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but lost to "My Heart Will Go On" from "Titanic".

While Danny Elfman's score was nominated for an Oscar, only two cues appear on the film's soundtrack release. Elfman's "Weepy Donuts" was used on NBC's "The Today Show" on September 11 2006, while Matt Lauer spoke during the opening credits.

Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" is also featured in the closing credits after "Miss Misery," but does not appear on the soundtrack.

Awards

Wins

*Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – Robin Williams
*Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay - Matt Damon & Ben Affleck
*Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture - Matt Damon & Ben Affleck

Nominations

*Academy Award for Best Picture
*Academy Award for Best Actor - Matt Damon
*Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress - Minnie Driver
*Academy Award for Best Director - Gus Van Sant
*Academy Award for Best Song – Elliott Smith (song "Miss Misery")
*Academy Award for Original Music Score - Danny Elfman
*Academy Award for Film Editing - Pietro Scalia
*Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama
*Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actor - Drama - Matt Damon
*Golden Globe Award Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture - Robin Williams
*Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures - Gus Van Sant
*Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen - Matt Damon & Ben Affleck

Fictional sequel

In "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", a fictional sequel is being filmed called "Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season". It features cameos from Gus Van Sant, Scott Mosier, and Matt Damon. Though Ben Affleck has a role in "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" as Holden McNeil, he does have a cameo as himself during the filming scenes of "Good Will Hunting 2".

References

External links

*
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* [http://www.screenit.com/movies/1997/good_will_hunting.html Screen it.com]
* [http://www.robin-williams.net/gwhearlyscript.htm Early script by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck] (This script differs slightly from the movie.)
* [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=goodwillhunting.htm Box Office Mojo site about movie's theatrical release]