Good Will Hunting: A Review
With Good Will Hunting being one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time, it has been on my must-watch list for as long as I can remember. The end of the movie left me somewhat stunned, for lack of better words. While Will’s storyline felt resolved, I found myself reflecting on how I view opportunities and my own relationships. The theme of self-sabotage was hitting too close to home—as I think we’ve all experienced or witnessed it at some point—and I needed to closely examine why. I thought I was watching a film—the culmination of props, scripts, actors, music, and set design that make up the moving image on my TV screen. With the film’s distinct level of relatability, I was determined to uncover why it was there in the first place.
Will Hunting is a janitor working at MIT who has a genius level-IQ,allowing him to solve the unsolvable mysteries in mathematics. The film follows Will as he navigates his unique intelligence and how that starts to affect the rough, low-class lifestyle that he has been accustomed to. One might believe that someone of his genius would utilize it to their advantage, landing job opportunities and impressing those around them–however, Will refuses to do so. Why does Will decide to put up a sarcastic facade and reject any economic opportunities that could potentially take him out of his difficult life? Most of Will’s behavior can be explained from his childhood marked by abuse and instability. When someone grows up expecting pain, they will most often learn to anticipate it before it happens. Will’s actions fit this psychological conditioning perfectly: if closeness leads to getting hurt, then creating distance will make you feel safer. If hope often leads to disappointment, then rejecting hope becomes a way to stay in control and not be let down. His self-destructive choices feel so believable because they are rooted in fundamental psychological concepts. Will fears what success in all facets of his life would demand of him. Having a better life would mean trust, emotional exposure, and the possibility of being left again. Staying where he is, painful as it is, allows him to avoid that risk.
One of Will’s most outstanding traits is his intelligence, which is central to a lot of his life's problems. He uses his genius not as a gift, but as a hiding place. He can outsmart nearly everyone around him—as evidenced by his confrontation at the bar with a Harvard student—and that power lets him avoid intimacy by staying on offense. When conversations become too personal or emotional, he turns them into intelligence contests. For example, when Will is with his friend at a bar that is frequented by Harvard students, he immediately turns to humiliating one of the Harvard students by using his intellect to show how stupid the Harvard student is. While clearly this Harvard student deserved to be humbled, a closer analysis reveals how Will is intimidated by the student because Will hasn’t gone to college or gotten a degree. When Will feels vulnerable, he humiliates others first as a defense mechanism. The film’s central tension is within the complexity of Will’s character because his intelligence is both his greatest strength and greatest weakness.
Will’s relationship with Skylar (Minnie Driver) is the clearest example of self-sabotage in the film. Skylar, a pre-med student at Harvard, offers him a future that includes affection, happiness, and an escape from his current life. While Will initially embraces Skylar, he panics when he starts to conceptualize his deep feelings for her. When Skylar invites Will to come with her to California, Will sees this as abandonment when in reality it should represent freedom. He believes that if he gets too attached, he will eventually be the one getting hurt. So, Will breaks up with Skylar in a heated argument in her dorm room. Will would rather be the one who leaves than the one left behind, giving him a sense of control. Will chooses pain that is self-inflicted over an uncertain future, which adequately represents the logic of his self-sabotage throughout the film. Their breakup scene serves as a window into Will’s entire life view, with him stating, “You just want to have your little fling with like the guy from the other side of town then you’re gonna go off to Stanford you’re going to marry some rich prick who your parents will approve of and just sit around with the other trust fund babies and talk about how you went slumming too, once.” Will doesn’t talk through his fears with Skylar but instead tells her that she is going to hurt him, the clearest example of him wrecking things in his life on his own accord.
Will’s best friend, Chuckie (Ben Affleck), plays a pivotal role in the film because he represents more than the comic relief or loyal best friend. Chuckie is the only person in the film who can get Will to listen to the truth. When Chuckie tells Will that the best thing Will can do is not waste his life, this reframes the central concept of self-sabotage as betrayal—not just of himself, but of the people around him who believe in him. While Will may choose to believe differently, the reality is that Chuckie is in a different position in life than Will. While they both have similar upbringings and live similar lives, Will is a genius while Chuckie isn’t, making it much easier for Will to get himself out of his cyclical lower class life. As Chuckie puts it, Will is “sitting on a winning lottery ticket and you’re too much of a pussy to cash it in.” Chuckie makes it clear that real friendship means urging someone to leave the comfort of self-destruction. This is important because self-sabotage often survives environments that accidentally support it. Will’s other friends tolerate his behavior, letting him drink and drive around everyday with no care for the future. Chuckie breaks that pattern by refusing to romanticize Will’s wasted potential. He treats Will’s choices as the choices they are, not some far off destiny that is out of his control.
Good Will Hunting argues that self-sabotage is not proof of weakness, it can be proof of past trauma. People destroy opportunities when those opportunities are deemed a threat to their old survival strategies. Will’s past has taught him to live in a way that minimizes immediate pain, even if it guarantees a long-term life of chronic pain. The ending matters because it suggests self-sabotage can be interrupted. To me, this film shows that even though taking the risk and opening up to people is scary, the reason it seems daunting is because the reward from being loved is so great. The filmmakers understand that a person can be talented and loved, but still refuse to accept their reality because they don’t think they deserve it. What separates the film from being good to being great is its balance between witty, humorous scenes—such as Will’s famous line “how do you like dem apples?”—with emotionally charged moments. This mirroring bridges the divide between being immersed in a film versus watching it because Good Will Hunting isn’t too far off from our daily lives.
The reason why Good Will Hunting still connects with audiences is that self-sabotage is a universal concept that almost every human can relate to, even if it takes different forms. Not everyone pushes people away with sarcasm, but many people distance themselves from the things they want because they fear they don’t deserve it or they’re setting themselves up for disappointment. The beauty of this film is that it is able to capture this psychological contradiction with honesty. We can relate to the film’s central meaning, and the filmmakers don’t try to make Will some unrelatable character that we observe. Despite his genius level IQ, Will is at heart a normal guy who harbors one of the most prevalent fears in most people: being vulnerable. Will Hunting is a memorable character because he is not just a math genius, but also a human being fighting the part of himself that believes self-inflicted pain is safer than the pain that might arise from having hope.
Nicole Au is a sophomore at Columbia University studying Psychology and Film. When not sharing her love of film, she likes to bake, paint, find new food spots in the city, or do jigsaw puzzles. While a cinephile, she especially loves all movies starring Tom Hanks or Leonardo DiCaprio.