Learn To Be A Screenwriter / Good Will Hunting – Film Analysis

It’s rare when twenty-something actors write something so well received, let alone so profitable. Orson Welles did it with Citizen Kane. Peter Fonda did it with Easy Rider. Sylvester Stallone did it with Rocky. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck did it with Good Will Hunting.

Released in December 1997, Good Will Hunting earned $225 million worldwide on a production budget of $10 million, making bankable stars out of Damon and Affleck. 

History

Hard to imagine this film as a thriller, but that’s exactly what it started out as. In early drafts, Will’s recruited by a government organization that eventually attempts to kidnap and/or kill him. I wonder how close the NSA/code breaking monologue was to the external goals of those drafts. Perhaps it’s possible Good Will Hunting had a Real Genius slant…but, you know, without all the popcorn.

Originally setup at Castle Rock, Rob Reiner had Damon and Affleck focus on the relationship between Will and his therapist. Fleshing out Reiner’s suggestions with a little help from William Goldman, a dinner with Terrence Malick would give the film its ending. The original script depicted Will and Skylar leaving for California together, but it was Malick who suggested what we see today. According to Matt Damon:

Terry didn’t read the script but we explained the whole story to him, and in the middle of the dinner, he said, ‘I think it would be better if she left and he went after her.’ And Ben and I looked at each other. It was one of those things where you go: of course that‘s better. He said it and he probably doesn’t even remmber that he said it. He started talking about Antonioni. ‘In Italian movies a guy just leaves town at the end and that enough.’ And we said of course that’s enough. That’s where we come from. If you just leave that’s a big enough deal. It doesn’t have to build up to anything more. 

With Castle Rock unable to secure the cast they wanted, the project was put into turnaround and picked up by Miramax. There, it was given the green light, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were cast in the roles they wrote for themselves, Gus Van Sant was hired as director, and shooting began in 1996. The rest, as they say, is history.

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Theme

Sigmund Freud believed the problems we face in our adult lives relate to unresolved conflicts from our childhood and adolescence. Will Hunting had a rough life, suffering unfathomable abuse as orphan. He was beaten — once even stabbed — by the people he needed to trust the most. To reinforce this, the inciting incident utilizes a story about a kid who beat him up in kindergarten. Violence was all around him and it’s shaped his adult world.

Good Will Hunting’s prevalent theme deals with relationships enhancing your self-worth. Maybe it wasn’t until Will found friendship, in what Lambeau describes as “those retarded gorillas,” that he felt any self-worth. To say Chuckie, Morgan, and Billy are just blue collar simpletons misses the point. They taught him the value of loyalty. Sean hits the nail on the head in his argument with Lambeau — any of those guys would take a bat to his head if Will asked. But with Will’s abilities, it’s easy for the audience to see he’s not challenged and not living his life to its true potential. We need not look further than the scene with the two friends taking a lunch break on a construction job: