A Critique of Good Will Hunting, a Movie by Gus Van Sant

It is hard to come across a film that many would label a good film, it has to live up to the standards different people hold. In essence, though, the value of a film should be rated by three things the script, the directing, and the acting. All good films must start with a good script without it, they would never have gotten into production. It then must have a strong director, with the ability to effectively portray the best possible scenes for that script.

Finally, it must have actors who are capable of delivering those scenes, a film can be only measured on how well it lives up to these three things, and Good Will Hunting does exactly this. One of the most unexpected things about good will hunting is its brilliant script, it is one complicated yet well-written screenplay.

At first glance, the story might seem a bit unoriginal: a brilliant, young man abused as a child must come to learn to deal with his issues and fears, yet the writing does it in a way that captivates the audience.

This film becomes special though in how it believably develops Will’s character and smoothly works these issues out through humorous dialogue and credible confrontations. For instance, Will and Chuckie‘s confrontation during their break at work. If Chuckie is not told Will he would kill him if he kept working at the demo wasting his time, Will would have never realized that even his closest friend, who he taught understood him, actually is sad to see Will waste his talents.

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Through these small encounters, the script tells of a powerful, memorable story that engages the audience from beginning to end.

The film also reflects a wonderfully directed piece of work. When it comes to directing a movie with a troubled individual as its protagonist, most films falter somewhere along the line due to its bad development from scene to scene In many cases, there is an enormous amount of melodramatic scenes in this genre of film that can easily lose a viewer’s interest; however, this film is able to avoid these faults. The director mixes in humor within the melodramatic scenes to keep a viewer’s attention. The witty dialogue when Will confronts the Harvard student at the bar or when the camera pans at the painting sean created shows mastery of the director to show these characters. Lastly, the powerful acting by the cast for their respective characters was intensely beautiful. In particular, Matt Damon and Robin Williams’s therapy sessions is what steals most of the scenes.

They make the aching, step-by-step transformation of Will seem both realistic and credible. They effectively portray the mindsets of what many in therapeutic counseling go through. In the end, it feels as if Damon and Williams left no stone unturned in the doctor/patient dynamic. This is the reason why actors have one of the toughest jobs in all of film: they are judged based on their portrayal of these characters, and in Good Will Hunting, they live up to their expectations. Because of its great script, great direction, and a great cast, Good Will Hunting is a stunning picture that is hard to forget it is worth the time revisiting again and again. The last thing anyone wants is to walk into a film and feel like they have wasted their time this movie does not have that feeling.