Why Good Will Hunting Stands Out

Among the popular Dramas out there in the film industry such as The Godfather and Shawshank Redemption, Good Will Hunting is another gem that stands out from the crowd. The film shines brightest through it's pain and empathy between the characters and the audience using the movie's complex relationships.

Matt Damon (Left) as Will Hunting and
Robin Williams (Right) as Dr. Sean Maguire.
Photo Couresy of Spoonful of Positivity

Will Hunting is a troubled, yet gifted young man who likes to go get drunk with his friends when he's not working as a janitor. When Hunting is landed in trouble after fighting a gang with his friends who bullied him as a kid, he has to decide whether he wants to take therapy with Dr. Sean Maguire and contribute to society or do his time in jail. After a few failed sessions, Maguire successful made Hunting open up about his childhood and how he was a victim of abuse as an orphan by his foster father. Hunting learns he was not the only one to be physically abused.

Good Will Hunting presents a brilliant cast such as Matt Damon as Will Hunting who is genius while he works as a janitor. Professor Gerald Lambeau challenges his students by writing down a difficult Math problem for them to solve and Hunting solves it without the professor knowing his identity. Robin Williams and Ben Affleck play Dr. Sean Maguire and Chuckie Sullivan as supporting roles.

The script was originally about a young man who was selected by the government for recruited because of his high intelligence level. Matt Damon created this script for his playwriting assignment at Harvard University and had asked Ben Affleck if he could join to finish the script together according to Refinery29.

“I had a few electives left. There was this playwriting class and the culmination of it was to write a one-act play, and I just started writing a movie. So I handed the professor at the end of the semester a 40-some-odd-page document, and said, ‘Look, I might have failed your class, but it is the first act of something longer,” Damon said in an oral history in Boston Magazine. As it turns out, Damon’s professor, Anthony Kubiak, wasn’t upset that Damon threw out all of his directions. He called the script “very authentic and real.”

Ben Affleck (Left) as Chuckie Sullivan

Photo Couresy of Miramax

Good Will Hunting stands out for it's ironic situation the main character is placed in with the unlikely scenario of a genius working as a janitor. The audience can empathize with a man who is wasting his talent over his troubled past he underwent and had been a victim of his foster father as a child. The complex relationship between Hunting and Maguire inspires Hunting to face his inner demons and finally utilize the gift he was given.

The pain and empathy of a young man being held back by his past, the casting, and the complex relationship between Hunting and Maguire is what drove this movie to be a classic. Each piece I've mentioned is what makes Good Will Hunting a near-perfect masterpiece.