“Good Will Hunting” is one of my top five favorite movies of all time. It has such an interesting cast of characters played by all of the right people, and an impressive and deep meaning that you can catch easily, but also ponder over for a while. “Good Will Hunting” is a fantastic story that has its twists and turns that create a rich atmosphere that elicited a great amount of sympathy for the characters and allows you to get invested in every character’s life. This is a quality I find lacking in a lot of movies. Typically I can understand a character and either hope for them to succeed for the story or for the sake of enjoyment but not really care about the decision that they make in terms of their life.

An amazing performance from Robin Williams and Matt Damon really sells the movie. Having Robin Williams play such a genuine character was a fantastic use of his acting skills. Although Robin Willams plays a very grounded character, he still lets some of his signature humor through.

The story that “Good Will Hunting” choses to tell is a mature one that everyone can understand and enjoy. The story follows Matt Damon’s character, Will Hunting, as he goes through life as a young man living in Boston. The movie is quick to show that Will is a genius and dwarfs all of his friends in sheer intelligence but struggles with releasing his gift and just wants to live his life how he wants to.

At the school where Will is employed as a janitor, he solves a math problem that took the creator of that problem, a professor, two years to solve. The professor wants to track down the genius boy, and finds him in a courtroom for fighting a police officer. He makes a deal with Will that he will meet with the professor and a therapist. Will takes all of the therapists that he meets as a joke and annoys them to the point where they drop him as a patient. The professor has one more therapist in mind, Sean Maguire, a friend from college who teaches psychology at the same school that he teaches at. Sean agrees to take the kid, begrudgingly, and over many difficult sessions, builds a rapport with Will.

Along the way he goes with his lowlife, but kind hearted friends to a Harvard bar where he meets a girl, Skylar. She goes to Harvard and ends up falling in love with Will and vice versa. Skylar decides to go to medical school in California and invites him to come with her. Will, afraid of the uncertainty of the relationship, pushes her away.. Sean tells Will a story where he misses one of the most exciting and anticipated games in a baseball series to go have a chance with a beautiful girl at a bar who later became his wife. Taking a risk to leave the most important thing to have the chance to find something more important is a risk that Will can connect with. He loves his life in Boston and knows that he can either leave it all behind in pursuit of something that isn’t guaranteed or stay in Boston and keep his life the same.

In the final scenes of the movie, it shows Will driving to Sean’s house and delivering a note saying “if the professor is looking for me. Tell him, I had to see about a girl.” He drives off in a car that his friends had built for his 18th birthday and starts the long drive from Boston to California.

The scene that made me want to do a review of this movie is a great example of how compelling this movie is. One of Will’s friends lands him a job in construction and gets to talk to him during his break. Will says that he is happy that he got him the job and looks forward to spending the rest of his life in this small town in Boston. His friend is really upset by this and Will doesn’t understand why. His friend explains that he is doing a disservice to all of those who are less fortunate who don’t have the gift that he has. His friend also says that the best part of his day is when he drives to Wills house and knocks on his door. The time between the knock and Will answering the door is the best part of his day. He wants no goodbye, no heartfelt thank you’s, just leaving. One would immediately see this as rude and not in character for someone who has been friends with Will for so long; however, understanding that being a good friend doesn’t mean keeping a friend. If you can be in someone’s life while holding them back, just so you can spend more time with them is not what a true friend would do. Being a good friend means that you are able to let go even if you won’t see this friend again. Letting go of a friend so they can prosper is a hard thing and I think that this movie orchestrated this point perfectly.

A character in the movie I think is done perfectly is Sean, not only because I love Robin Willams, he is just such a perfectly written charicute. Having incredible booksmarts on the subject of psychology but ultimately understanding that he can’t learn anything about Will from any book. He needs to know the person. Anytime Sean is on the screen something incredibly touching is about to happen or something hilarious. I would say that he is the backbone of the entire movie even though not being the focal point.

When re-watching the movie for this review I had already seen the movie 4 times. On the fifth rewatch, my enjoyment of the movie never fades. I struggle to put the plot and narrative of the movie into words, but the best I can do is to call this movie soulful. People of all ages and minds can get a message from this movie. I implore anyone who has the time and interest to give it a shot.