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.

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:

EXT. MAGGIORE BUILDER’S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- PARKING LOT CHUCKIE Look, you’re my best friend, so don’t take this the wrong way, but in 20 years, if you’re livin’ next door to me, comin’ over watchin’ the fuckin’ Patriots’ games and still workin’ construction, I’ll fuckin’ kill you. And that’s not a threat, that’s a fact. I’ll fuckin’ kill you. WILL Chuckie, what are you talkin’... CHUCKIE Listen, you got somethin’ that none of us have. WILL Why is it always this? I owe it to myself? What if I don’t want to? CHUCKIE Fuck you. You owe it to me. Tomorrow I’m gonna wake up and I’ll be fifty and I’ll still be doin’ this. And that’s all right ’cause I’m gonna make a run at it. But you, you’re sittin’ on a winning lottery ticket and you’re too much of a pussy to cash it in. And that’s bullshit ’cause I’d do anything to have what you got! And so would any of these guys. It’d be a fuckin’ insult to us if you’re still here in twenty years.

Structure

Good Will Hunting’s screenplay structure interweaves five different stories:

Will and Sean

Will and Skylar (The Romantic Line)

Will and Lambeau

Will and Chuckie

Sean and Lambeau

The screenwriters pull from each of these story lines to fill the main beats. With Will and Lambeau, you get the first steps on the external line of action (finding Will solving the second theorem) and the first act turn (Lambeau’s visit to Will in jail). From the point Sean meets Will at minute 39, that relationship fills major beats, pushing Will toward change. Chuckie pops up for an important beat: a shake down of $200 at a job interview Lambeau setup. Skylar’s line is used when Will takes a step towards intimacy.

It’s easy to misinterpret the inciting incident as the moment Will solves the first of Lambeau’s theorems, when it’s nothing more than brilliant subtext — a deep desire, perhaps unconscious, to find someone like him. Will haunts the hallways of MIT as a janitor, cleaning up the garbage of students, even professors, who are his intellectual inferior. The screenwriters are telling us this is Will’s ordinary world. The inciting incident is his arrest because it forces him to work with Lambeau and eventually, Sean.

With the downloadable screenplay analysis, I’ve also pointed out the the major beats in the story between Will and Skylar. Their meeting is an inciting incident for the romantic line 22 minutes into the film. The first date with Skylar is a trial. After blowing her off, he asks her out on a date (pushing him closer to intimacy) — a great midpoint for their story. There’s a turn when she asks him to move to California and a point of no return beat when he can’t say if he loves her. The climax brings their story line together with all others.

Opening and Closing Images

I have a feeling Gus Van Sant had a lot to do with this choice. The script originally opened on a St. Patrick’s Day parade, cutting to inside a bar with a story about Chuckie’s cousin accidentally killing a cat. Opening the film with juvenile humor wouldn’t have served it well. Opening images are important. Van Sant’s choice of words and numbers blurring together represent Will’s intellect; something we can’t begin understand. When the images come into focus we see Will reading and it sets the tone. These people, the authors, are the ones who challenge him.

The closing image is the perfect contrast. Will’s moving on with life. Thanks to his therapy with Sean, he has the ability to love Skylar and the desire to see if it can work out. Who knows whether he’ll find her with arms wide open or on the arm of a Danish heavy metal drummer. We just don’t know. But that’s not the point. The ambiguity doesn’t interfere with his climactic act. Will’s found someone who challenges him and he’s grown enough to overcome his fear of intimacy. The closing image reflects that. He’s moving forward in life. I doubt there’s one book in the car.