Jeremy’s Tophunder №1: Good Will Hunting

11 min readJun 26, 2020

So, we made it. 100 movies in 100 days.

Now that we’re here though, I almost don’t want to write this one. I’ve spent the last three months and change diving into my favorite movies, exploring what they meant to me the first time I saw them, what they meant to me the 10th time I saw them, and what they mean to me now. I’ve explored their themes and subtexts, just sat back in awe of the spectacle they are able to portray on the screen, or in some cases just had to admit that I love the movie now just because I loved the movie when I was 5. I’ve thought about what it says about me as a person that I count certain movies among my favorites, and that I rank certain movies above others.

There’s a scene in Saving Private Ryan that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few days. Matt Damon’s character is having trouble remembering his brothers’ faces, so Tom Hanks’ character tells him to think about specific memories, the way he thinks about his wife pruning rosebushes back home. So Damon tells a funny story about his brothers and the general mayhem that they used to get into, and then asks Tom Hanks to say more about his wife and the rosebushes.

Tom Hanks just says, “No — that one I save just for me.”

That’s kind of how I feel right now. To me, Good Will Hunting is a profoundly personal movie. I have certain feelings about the movie that I’ve held for the better part of 20 years, and sharing them here would mean that they aren’t only mine anymore, and I’m not sure I want to surrender that. There are some feelings that I associate with the movie that I want to stay just mine.

More than that, though, I’m not sure I’m capable of adequately expressing exactly what the movie means to me. Just by way of some context — when I was ranking the movies on the list, at some points there was an agonizing process of choosing one movie over another (the 7–10 order of The Dark Knight, The Departed, Saving Private Ryan, and Inglourious Basterds took me several days to finally settle on). At some other points, it kind of felt like I was just adding a half-dozen movies onto the list and spending no more than a minute on deciding how to order them, because it didn’t really matter (there’s a stretch in the 60s and into the 70s that I would almost certainly re-order now). There were probably 4 or 5 times over the course of this project where I would re-watch a movie in preparation for writing about it, and halfway through the movie think to myself, “shit, I think my ranking for this movie is way off.”

But the №1 spot was never in question. It was always going to be Good Will Hunting, and there was never going to be even a token argument for any other movie. It’s held the №1 spot for just about my entire adult life, and I can’t imagine it ever being un-seated. It just means so much to me. Some of those feelings are ones that I know firmly and hold, and I just don’t want to share them, and some of those feelings are ones that I couldn’t fully put into words even if I tried.

But, I’ve come this far, so I suppose I have to write something down, don’t I?

It’s in the small moments of the movie that I seem to find the most pleasure. As the opening credits roll, Chuckie (Ben Affleck) drives to Will’s (Matt Damon) house to pick him up. As they walk back to the car, the line “Written by Matt Damon & Ben Affleck” flashes on the screen, but the way the actors are standing makes the names appear backwards:

I don’t know why, but I love it.

I love how Cole Hauser’s character (Billy) barely speaks. As the (possibly apocryphal) story goes, originally, his part and Casey Affleck’s part (Morgan) were written with around the same number of lines. But Hauser sold the production team on the idea that most groups of friends have one person that’s quiet and unassuming most of the time, and one person that just never shuts up. So his part and Casey Affleck’s part were partially re-written to reflect that. Affleck ended up ad-libbing most of his lines anyway (with Damon and Ben Affleck saying his improvs were better than what they had written in the first place) and eventually became a legitimate star (winning an Oscar in 2017 for Manchester by the Sea), while Cole Hauser’s career fizzled in the 2000s. I’m not sure how true the story is, but I kind of want to believe it. I kind of want to think that Cole Hauser sacrificed future career success for the sake of the movie (and, indirectly, Casey Affleck’s career). I definitely think it’s a better movie with Morgan as the guy that just won’t shut up and Billy as the guy that never speaks and is vaguely terrifying because of it.

Speaking of Casey Affleck’s ad-libs, his two best ones are definitely in the Harvard bar scene. Obviously, there’s the now-iconic “my boy’s wicked smart” after Will thoroughly eviscerates the condescending waspy douchebag with terrible hair. But there’s also the moment where Skylar comes over to talk to Will, and Morgan is recounting some half-story of why he didn’t hook up with one girl one time (or something of the sort), before abruptly ending the story with “I swallowed a bug.” It’s actually a reference to “Hearts of Darkness,” the documentary about the filming of “Apocalypse Now.” In the documentary, there’s a scene where Marlon Brando accidentally swallows a bug that flies into his mouth while he’s speaking. Apparently it was an inside joke with the Affleck brothers and Damon — you can even see Damon start to laugh before composing himself.

There’s Will’s first therapy session, with a guy named Henry. Henry is played by George Plimpton, one of the greatest sportswriters of his era, possibly best known for the greatest April Fools’ prank in the history of sports. In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, Plimpton profiled a (fake) baseball player named Sidd Finch, who was raised in an English orphanage, trained in Tibet, and could throw a fastball clocked at 168 miles per hour. A staggering number of people fell for the hoax, including a number of Major League GMs, who called the commissioner of the league looking for more information.

There’s the scene where Sean (Robin Williams) and Will talk about Will’s date, which evolves into Sean talking about his deceased wife and how she used to fart in her sleep. It’s totally ad-libbed by Williams, and both he and Damon can’t stop laughing. You can even see the camera start to shake, and that’s because the camera operator was laughing his ass off also. They ended up shooting the scene a few more times, getting cleaner shots, but they decided to go with the takes where the camera shakes anyway, because they just felt more organic.

There’s the scene where Will and Sean talk about Carlton Fisk’s home run in the 1975 World Series, the same night that Sean met his wife. The scene is introduced in a rather jarring fashion — from overhead, looking down as if the camera is planted on the ceiling. But as the scene progresses, it becomes clear why: the chairs in Sean’s office become the bases as Sean acts out Fisk’s home run in its entirety, including bowling over fans who charged the field on his way around.

There’s the moment where Chuckie comes back to the car to tell Morgan and Billy that Will isn’t home — he’s gone. Morgan flies out of the back seat, sprints around the car, and claims shotgun. It’s such a simple expression of happiness. It’s probably my favorite small moment in the movie, when Morgan realizes the pecking order has changed and he gets to sit up front for once.

Or my other favorite small moment, when Will bails on a meeting at Holden & McNeil and sends Chuckie, his “chief negotiator.” It’s been a life-long dream of mine to don a cheap suit, accentuated by boat shoes and white tube socks, slick back my hair, and stroll into a job interview demanding a retainer. If and when they do offer me cash, I hope to be able to tell them that they’re suspect, and encourage them to keep their ear to the grindstone.

It’s also about the big moments, though. The ones we all know about, like Sean’s monologue in the public garden, or Will’s monologue about the NSA, or Will and Skylar’s fight, Chuckie’s monologue about the best part of his day, or the emotional climax with Will and Sean sobbing into each other’s arms. The moments that hit you like a ton of bricks and remind you that while there are hysterically funny moments between friends, it’s still a movie about a tortured genius who can’t seem to get out of his own way, and is so crippled by his fear of abandonment that it’s only by the sheer grace of god he has the friendships that he does.

At various points in my life, I’ve walked in the shoes of different characters in this movie. I’ve felt like Will — depressed, angry at the world, and abjectly refusing to even attempt to live up to my potential. I’ve felt like Sean — recovering from personal losses by pouring myself into helping others. I’ve felt like Chuckie — overshadowed by a friend but always thankful that they’re in my life. I’ve felt like Lambeau — finding someone who can play on my level, only to realize they’re actually much better than me. I’ve felt like Skylar — heartbroken that I can’t make a relationship work, as much as I want to.

But I’ve had the other ends, also. I’ve felt like Will and Sean — getting over my fears, exorcising my demons, and starting to work on myself for my own sake. I’ve felt like Chuckie — letting go of a relationship because I know they were always going to move on eventually. I’ve felt like Lambeau — realizing that moments I thought were selfless were actually self-serving. And I’ve felt like Skylar — moving onto the next chapter in my life through that heartache.

I can watch this movie today and place myself into the headspace of any number of characters, and empathize. I can’t think of any other movie that I’m able to do that for. I don’t just see the emotional arc of each character, I genuinely feel it.

I don’t just love this movie because it’s set in Boston. I don’t just love this movie because it’s backbone is the relationship between a therapist and a patient. I don’t just love this movie because it’s hilarious. I don’t just love this movie because it’s heartfelt and powerful. I don’t just love this movie because it stars Robin Williams. I don’t just love this movie because it stars Matt Damon. I don’t just love this movie for the small moments, and I don’t just love this movie for the big moments. It’s all of those reasons wrapped up together, plus the aforementioned laundry list of reasons that I either can’t or choose not to fully explore in this space. More than any other movie I’ve ever seen, Good Will Hunting feels like it was made specifically for me. It hits me in just about every single way that a great movie can.

It’s the only movie that I actually consider as part of my identity. There are plenty of movies that I’m proud to say that I love, and I think it says a lot about me that (a) I like movies, and (b) I like -those- movies. That’s part of my identity as well. But as much as I love A Few Good Men, and The Social Network, and any number of other movies that are ranked high (or not so high) on my list, the movie itself isn’t part of my identity. I am a person who likes A Few Good Men. I am not a person who likes Good Will Hunting. I *am* Good Will Hunting, or at least it feels that way, to some infinitesimally small degree. It resonates with me so strongly that the feeling transcends descriptions of “like” or even “love.” I “love” plenty of movies the same way that I love cookies and sleeping in on a Saturday and having a beer while watching a baseball game. I “love” Good Will Hunting the way I love my family and my closest friends. It’s just a fundamentally different feeling.

I’m sure it didn’t come as a surprise to many of you that Good Will Hunting was the №1 spot on my list. It’s not exactly a secret. I started writing my Tophunder list over four years ago. The Google Spreadsheet that has housed my list and been my guide throughout this process was created on June 6, 2016. My brainstorms lived on yellow legal pads before that, but those have unfortunately been lost to history. But on every single iteration of the list, Good Will Hunting has held the top spot. There was never any consideration for another movie at №1. Just thinking about the idea now seems foreign to me. It’s almost like the gap between №1 and №2 is as vast as the gap between №2 and №100. Ranking the best sprinters in the world has Usain Bolt on a level all to himself, and then everyone else is a distant second. My favorite movies are kind of the same way, I suppose.

Good Will Hunting is my favorite movie. It seems like it always has been. It probably always will be. I’m happy with that. I like most movies. I love some. I really, really love a select few. But Good Will Hunting still stands apart. Its my №1, and now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go see about a girl.

(For a refresher on the project, I introduced it in a Facebook Post on Day 1)

Here’s the complete list:

1. Good Will Hunting

2. A Few Good Men

3. The Social Network

4. Dazed and Confused

5. The Shawshank Redemption

6. The Fugitive

7. The Dark Knight

8. The Departed

9. Saving Private Ryan

10. Inglourious Basterds