Good Will Hunting (1997 film)

I always thought it was overrated

Overrated then, overrated now.

Not terrible. Just not all that.

Overrated then and now -- all this fun because two guys were cute and new.

When therapists say it's not your fault.

What every patient wants to hear!

Overrated in its overall acclaim, but not overrated in that it is a good watch filled with above average performances and an interesting concept. Williams was perfectly understated (for him) and Skarsgård was fabulous. Even Damon and Affleck did a very decent job with their roles. I liked how it presented how supportive Will and his friends were of each other. That type of movie would never get made in the current douche-bro, comic book, hyper violent climate, at least not for the mid-range crowd.

The O’ Captain, My Captain climax still moves me to tears. 😭

I loved it, even more now since they're not making these earnest 90s movies anymore.

I also loved the joke going around at the time when it was nominated for awards. "There probably should be a new category for a movie about an Irish math genius--science fiction."

Damn thats a mean joke

Doesn’t hold up.

R10 how so?

It's been rumored for years that Damon and Affleck didn't actually write the Oscar-winning screenplay.

R12 who did?

William Goldman allegedly

It's clear Damon and Affleck didn't write the part about Williams and Stellean Skarsgaard and their rivalry. That is some pretty sophisticated psychology going on in those scenes.

A little overrated but yes it holds up and I love it.

The only thing that mars it is when Robin Williams slips a bit into Robin Williams with his baseball story.

Matt Damon and Minnie Driver made for a very cute couple.

I hope it worked out for them in California

R14 Legend has it that Goldman—not Matt Damon or Ben Affleck—is the true author of Good Will Hunting. Goldman has long denied it, but he did cop to helping the Boston duo make an enormous, potentially film-saving change to the story. In his book Which Lie Did I Tell? (a must-read for aspiring screenwriters), Goldman revealed that the original script had an entire wacky subplot about the US government going after Damon’s character for his intellect. He told the writers, who at the time were both relatively unknown 20-somethings, that they needed to scrap all that and focus on the characters. And so they did. The film was nominated for nine Oscars, and Damon and Affleck won for their screenplay.

R15 yeah, I just re-watched it today and I thought some of the dialogue especially with Williams and stellean was a bit advanced for two 20yo white trash from beantown

Thanks r17 that's going on my winter reading list

Damon and Affleck actually have an upper-middle class upbringing with parents that ran in the academic circles, for all of Damon's 'everyman' posturing. But I agree they were not responsible for the script in its final form. They plotted out the script and Goldman spruced it up.

I resent the magic shrink movies like this and Ordinary People. I never got cured by a cathartic dramatic moment. I feel I’m owed a refund.

I don’t find the love story compelling. We’re told Will and Skylar are deeply in love but we don’t see it in any meaningful way. They have noting in common, and he’s emotionally stunted and angry. His dropping everything to go to California at the end is contrived.

R7 that’s Dead Poets Society

R21 it’s not your fault. it’s not your fault. it’s not your fault. it’s not your fault. it’s not your fault! it’s not your fault! it’s not your fault!

^you forgot the hug. The hug is key.

I thought Damon was really good in this and found his character compelling and authentic. His crying in his shrink’s office (and most of the office scenes) was well done, though I find the scene disturbing.

I’m not a fan of Robin William’s dramatic acting and his work overrated.

[quote]Damon and Affleck actually have an upper-middle class upbringing with parents that ran in the academic circles, for all of Damon's 'everyman' posturing.

Not quite. Matt? Yes. Ben? No. His mom was an elementary school teacher, which doesn't quite count as an "academic," and his dad was an alcoholic & addict (and also intermittently homeless) for most of Ben's youth. (Which explains a lot.) He also worked as a janitor at Harvard at one point, an element that of course ended up in the film script.

As for the movie: it's not overrated and is an excellent film, but the "overrated" part is the bullshit of Matt & Ben writing it themselves. While that's an obvious assumption considering they won the fucking OSCAR for it, one of Hollywood's worst-kept secrets is that their script was heavily "massaged" prior to shooting. R17's version of the story isn't the correct one: William Goldman rewrote it, but a few others did as well, plus he didn't have much direct involvement with Matt & Ben. R15 is entirely correct that they lacked the gravitas at that age for the nuanced scenes between its older characters.

Less well-known is the reality: it was all Harvey Weinstein's idea, and he did the most script massaging – still the only time he's massaged anything aside from the interior of GOOP's pussy – himself, including rewriting some of Goldman's material. He knew full well that the story of two working-class guys from Boston, ones who just happened to be unusually good-looking AND multitalented, would sell. The "minor" issue of both of them spouting some epic bullshit about their backgrounds (either middle- or upper-middle-class, depending on your criteria, but NOT working class) – along with their individual backstories – were ... let's go with "curiously absent" from any media coverage at the time. (To be fair, this was in the early days of the interwebs, where it took months for secrets to be revealed, not seconds. And no one in Hollywood would've challenged Harvey back then.)

Oh, and if you know that Ben was born in Berkeley, not anywhere near Southie, you're in a small minority. Also bullshit: Matt & Ben becoming "close friends" in school. They were two years apart, and at a huge urban public school. The tales about them "taking the bus to the Port Authority for NYC auditions" are also bullshit, or at least them doing so together was BS. Further, Matt was the main writer the whole time: he wrote the original script for a Harvard playwriting class.

Still, Damon & Affleck were (and are) clearly leading-man material, and Harvey knew their careers would ignite if he could present the "tale" of it being an "indie effort" of sorts. He's obviously a monster, but at least back then his instincts were DEAD-ON. As it so happens, I've read an early script for GWH, along with the final one. Even the early one had already been substantially rewritten, but it still bore little in common with either the final product OR the original one. (It didn't have anything involving a government conspiracy, however, plus Minnie Driver's part was initially larger.)

True story. I saw a student counselor at the university I went to. We had a moment where they told me it wasn't my fault. I was thinking are we reenacting the scene?

It was weird.

R28 they probably were

Very sad the DL-focused sequel, Good Will Cunting, was never made.

Were any animals harmed in the making of this movie?

Richard Gere wasn’t in this, r31

R27, Ben's mom was slumming it with his dad, but they were not middle class in any real sense. They were in the hippie-ish literati crowd and there was money upline. Not trying to dispute you, just disputing their own mythology of their beginnings. I hate when people throw around the word privileged, but that was exactly what they were.