Good Will Hunting – 4 stars

On the heels of Robin Williams suicide, I thought I’d review one his few films I liked. In Gus Van Sant’s drama, written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Williams plays a community college professor and psychologist. With his MIT credentials, he could have been a big deal but was waylaid by love and is now stricken with grief at her passing.

When William is introduced to guide the damaged savant, Will Hunting (Damon), we know that when all is said and done, both characters will have taught each other something valuable about life.

A lot can go wrong here.

But Van Sant keeps it even. Williams is smartly subdued, with no hint of the manic persona that became more schtick and adrenaline than acting. He is patient, picks his spots and elevates much of the film’s schmaltz with real pathos. When he is riled, it feels authentic and raw.

As for the film itself, I’ve always been torn. The concept is smart. A working-class Boston kid is also a genius, sadly mopping floors at MIT, but he finds a way to shine and then falls in love and then, through therapy, grows out of his limiting, Southie world. Van Sant’s direction is inventive (the slo-motion rumble to Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” is particularly nifty, and there are many such cool touches); the exchanges between the Southie pals (Damon, Ben Affleck – again, proving he can be very good in small doses – Casey Affleck and Cole Hauser) are believable, very natural, and often hilarious; there is actual heat between Damon and his romantic interest, Minnie Driver; and Elliot Smith’s musical contributions are hauntingly memorable.

On the downside, while Damon is quite good as the lead, his character is kind of one big cheat. Plagued by his own demons, we are supposed to empathize with Will, but he is a selfish, smug prick throughout, just about every assist you can give a modern protagonist – he’s lonely, he was shuttled from foster home to foster home, he was beaten as a child, his enemies are grotesque caricatures that lack only the villain’s mwahahahahahaha, and yet …

Here, Will goes toe-to-toe a snooty Harvard type:

Obviously, the Hah-vahhhd pony-tail is the bad guy (on the strength of the pony tail alone), but much of the film is sneering at the uptight folks who admire his genius and do him no injustice.

It reminded me of Walker Percy’s The Thanatos Syndrome: “There’s Hawkeye and Trapper John back in Korea. I never did like those guys. They fancied themselves super-decent and super-tolerant, but actually had no use for anyone who was not exactly like them. What they were was super-pleased with themselves. In truth, they were the real bigots, and phony at that. I always preferred Frank Burns, the stuffy, unpopular doc, a sincere bigot.”

So, as the music swells, and Will escapes the clutches of Southie to chase love, I’m pretty sure he’s going to revert to being a smug prick soon enough. Only now, Minnie Driver will be there to socialize him.

Louis CK pretty much nails it: