It was a fortunate circumstance for me to see the film again, in its entirety, in my Sociology class this past week. I knew I thoroughly enjoyed the film the first time around, awarding it three and a half out of a possible four stars back in 2011, but after rewatching it, I was keenly reminded of why I loved it so much in the first place. For me, it surpassed all expectations I had going into rewatching it. I feared it would be a much-of-a-muchness experience, and seeing it again might even put a slight damper on my love for it. Clearly, this was not the case. It's a wonderfully entertaining picture, poetic, nuanced, dialog-heavy, splendidly acted, richly directing, and from a sociological perspective, stronger than I could have ever imagined.
For starters, while I was somewhat happy that the class would see Good Will Hunting, I questioned its sociological value. The movie revolves around the title character (played by Matt Damon in his best, most captivating role yet), a troubled man who cleans the halls of M.I.T. and closets his intelligence greatly in his daily life. He hangs out with a group of Boston thugs (played by Cole Hauser and the brothers Affleck, Ben and Casey) that drink, swear, and fight, and doesn't give much thought to truly using his smarts to succeed higher in the world. When an M.I.T. math professor notices that Will can solve extremely difficult, complex problems effortlessly, but becomes aware of his insubordinate personality, he decides that he needs to try and get him stimulating assistance, and visits his old therapist named Sean Maguire, played by Robin Williams in another extraordinary, career-making role. The remainder shows Will's struggle to come to terms with himself, break out of his close-minded shell with Sean, and maintain a relationship with his girlfriend (Minnie Driver).
The premise is not hard to foresee, yet writers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon make this a worthwhile roller-coaster of a film. The sociological perspective they offer is so clear, vivid, and valuable that I'm stunned and ashamed of myself for not seeing it before. Here we have Will, a confident, yet troubled genius who can solve any mathematical equation effortlessly and spit out an answer to any trivia question or piece of world history. What he fails in, however, is something many intelligent people, you would think, would be disciplined in, and that's understanding other people. Will's insubordination doesn't make himself look so bad, as it does ignorant, as he frequently judges Sean based on a small painting he made, and feels he can read others like a passage out of a history textbook. What Sean exists for is to show Will that he's become so book-smart he's become unintentionally, but noticeably, ignorant to everyone but himself; a closeted, judgmental, often cynical narcissist that is equal parts admirable and insufferable.
Will displays a trait known as ethnocentrism, where he views other cultures with a negative and judgmental viewpoint. We do this a lot by habit and we don't even know it. Most of us have become so in-tune with our little shell that our judgments and point-of-views aren't as unbiased as we'd like to believe. In fact, some are gravely shallow; even Will's, who often seems to know us better than we do. The truth is, he knows the over-simplified version of us. By this definition, as well, Will is a literary anti-hero; a character who we'd like to see succeed because he has good traits that show us his positive side, but noticeable bad ones that cloud and restrict our judgment. Sean Maguire attempts to set Will on the track of cultural relativism, which is not fearing or judging other specific cultures, but embracing them and looking at them with a means to understand and contemplate.
There are two profound scenes in this film that not only evoke subtle humor but fuel these observations. Scene one is the infamous bar scene, where Will calls out a pretentious man in the bar, who is verbally plagiarizing something he read out of a book to try and impress and woo the ladies. Will displays ethnocentrism (pretending to understand someone when he doesn't) and directly calls him out on such an offense. In a later scene, Sean and Will are talking peacefully in a park, only a day or so after Will obnoxiously judged him entirely on his life and career by a painting that was hanging in his office. Sean states how systematically ignorant and uninformed Will is as a human, having not known anything about him and acting like he completely does. At first, we almost feel that Sean will display the same old ethnocentrism Will displayed, until we go on to see that Sean's monologue isn't hypocrisy, but a wake-up call that is delivered in a way that isn't oppressively preachy or cheap and disposable.
To see this kind of depth and substance released from a pretty sizable studio (when really contemplated, Miramax is sort of a mainstream indie film company) is truly astonishing. The names attached to this project, too, are just remarkable. Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier, two of my favorite working men in Hollywood, give their money to finance such a project (rumor has it that Smith is responsible for writing a good majority of Good Will Hunting, which entirely wouldn't surprise me), Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Robin Williams, and Minnie Driver are expertly cast in their role that will go on to benefit Will in some way, and Affleck and Damon lend their exquisitely deep writing talents to craft this picture from scratch. But one man to praise very highly for this work of brilliance is Gus Van Sant, the director of the entire project. Van Sant's delicate approach to serious material is wonderful, and he would use the same stylistic, intimate approach to his subjects in future films, such as the incredible, woefully underrated Elephant and the equally impressionistic Paranoid Park. Van Sant has a talent for character intimacy and it clearly isn't neglected here.
Rewatching a film is a hard thing for someone like me to do. I need to keep consistent with my school studies, while simultaneously, remaining consistent with new releases and films I've missed in general. It's something I really need to work on, but where's the time? Yet, I'm very, very glad to have revisited Good Will Hunting. It's needless to say that I can now add the extra half-star on to my review of it, which had been tragically subtracted after my first viewing. Looking at all these small pieces that made this film, to my thought at the time, very good, when examined from a broader scope, turned out to be more profound than I could've ever thought. One could say, they gelled to make applesauce.
For those curious about my original afterthoughts, you can find them here, http://stevethemovieman.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=reviews&action=display&thread=2191
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