Scared Will Hunting
“The Mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.” — Sigmund Freud. People choose not to show who they truly are in fear of not knowing the outcome. Good Will Hunting is a story about a young man named Will Hunting (Matt Damon) who lives in a poor neighborhood in south Boston. He is an orphan who underwent a traumatizing childhood with his foster parents. Being a mathematics genius who is able to solve proofs that have never been done before, he is noticed by a renowned mathematician, Professor Lambeau. Along with his impressive intellect comes the psychological issues manifested from his path. He sees a therapist named Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) and their friendship helps push Will into the right path. The movie has a lot of parallels to A Beautiful Mind (2001). A brilliant man is recognized for his mathematical skills and is encouraged to go on and do great things for the world, while also having companionship problems along the way. Ultimately, Good Will Hunting brings up the challenges that young adults face every day: fear of the unknown, and what their purpose in life is.
Good Will Hunting makes us think of a very deep and unanswerable question, “Am I working towards what I want for the rest of my life?” Will’s therapist, Sean and professor Lambeau are two very different examples of this. Sean, a prodigy-burn out who now works as a community college psychology professor, has lived a life without regret. He abandoned his promising opportunities of a career and chose to find love and live the life he felt would be best. Professor Lambeau, in contrast went on to win awards for his contributions in mathematics and lives a life surrounded by his career. Both men have similar capabilities, but went in completely different directions. Will is scared of what the rest of his life has to offer. In one scene, Will hands Professor Lambeau a mathematical proof. The professor doesn’t quite understand the work and starts questioning it. Will shouts back in frustration, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life explaining shit to people”. In the movie Proof (2005) Catherine is gifted with mathematic abilities — similar to Will. She doesn’t want anything to do with explaining her findings until the end when she runs out of an airport and meets up with a friend on a college campus and start discussing mathematical proofs. Will Hunting is a symbol of every young adult that is trying to figure out what their aspirations and goals are in life. Will wants to work in construction with his friends and live in the same neighborhood he is living in now. Why? Because it’s the safe option and he knows what to expect. Will is scared. Just like every kid out there, we’re scared of the unknown and scared of what will become of us in our adult lives. The lives of Sean and Lambeau are two different outcomes of Will’s possible future paths. Lambeau encourages him to do great things for the world and the department of mathematics. Sean believes Will should seek love, happiness and the thrill of life.
The film also has some parallels to the lives of Matt Damon. He attended Harvard University, but dropped out to pursue his acting career before he could graduate. Damon wrote a version of Good Will Hunting as an assignment for a class, and eventually, with some help, ended up creating his story into a movie. Damon had also been childhood friends with Ben Affleck. They both helped create the movie Good Will Hunting. Both actors went on to do great things in their career. Damon is seen in one of the greatest war movies ever — Saving Private Ryan, and later he stars as Jason Bourne in the Bourne series. In one of his more recent films, he plays an astronaut stranded on Mars in The Martian. Matt Damon left academic greatness to follow his dream as an actor, which is similar to Will Hunting’s decision to leave his promising future in mathematics to follow a girl he loves.
This enhances the importance of companionship in Good Will Hunting. Sigmund Freud was a psychoanalytical therapist who theorized the impacts on childhood abandonment. In the scene where Lambeau and Sean are yelling at each other about what is best for Will, Lambeau can’t grasp the idea that Will would rather not act on his opportunities. He refers to Will’s friends as “retarded gorillas”. Sean replies, “And why does he hang out with those retarded gorillas, as you called them, because any one of them, if he asked them to, would take a ****ing bat to your head, okay? It’s called loyalty.” Will is an orphan who was abused and abandoned at an early age. Sean uses Freud’s theories of defense mechanisms to explain his behavior of trust and insecurity. He believes that because everyone in his life had abandoned him and the friends he has now would do anything for him, and that’s why he won’t leave the life he has now.
The cinematography is very clever and creative in showing Will’s feelings of inhibition or trust by showing warm and cold colors. They show warm colors when Will is in a place where he can be himself and cold colors when Will feels he needs to hide who he is. In the scene when Will is in the bar, the colors are very warm. This is where he shows how intelligent he is and meets Skylar for the first time. In scenes when Will is in Skylar’s room, the colors are very warm which represent Will’s feelings of comfort and security. When he is with Skylar, he doesn’t need to hide who he is. Their love is strong, but when Will is confronted by Skylar, he lashes out. She brings up Will’s past as an excuse for his behavior, and Will feels she is talking about him in a condescending manner. Skylar knows Will loves her and asks him why he won’t say it. Will, in an attempt to defend himself from feeling vulnerable, lies to Skylar and says, “I don’t love you”.
The relationship with Sean and Will is very important. In their first meeting, Will sees a painting on Sean’s desk of a rowboat caught in the middle of a storm. This moment in the film is very symbolic of who Will is. It is representative of his life. The cold blue and white colors reveal the masked and insecure version of himself caught in the large, powerful world of society. Will uses the painting as a way to attack Sean. He interprets the painting in a way that it applies to Sean and ends up, unintentionally, insulting Sean’s dead wife. The relationship between these two started off very rough, but Sean wasn’t going to give up. As the movie progresses, and the relationship between Sean and Will grows stronger, the colors of the scenes get warmer and warmer whenever they are meeting. This is showing Will is becoming more and more of himself around Sean. These meetings are when Will grows as a person and realizes he doesn’t need to hide.
The film Fight Club (1999) also explores the meaning of life. The movie’s view on perfectionism and materialism is, in my opinion, a bit over the top. The movie shows how the ideal person in today’s society is ranked based on how many things he has, his successful career, and his social circle. This is called the illusion of happiness and success. We think we are happy and successful because of all of the things we have to show for it, but none of this stuff actually matters. The life of Robin Williams seems to go along with this thinking. Robin Williams was a very successful comedian and actor, and personally, one of my favorites. Everyone loved him, he had a lot of money and lots of fame. The sad part of his story is that he struggled with depression, anxiety, drugs and alcohol. This eventually lead to his suicide in 2014. A successful and loved actor/comedian who had everything to show for it, was unhappy with his life. This is perfect evidence in support of Fight Club’s opinion on materialism. What society thinks is happiness may not actually be happiness. Things do not last. Its temporary. We are temporary, and that is why we shouldn’t care about anything. Now, I think building a terrorist empire for the hell of it is a little extreme, but the idea it brings to the table is something to think about. What if Will chose to think of life this way, and not pursue anything? Should he just run around doing whatever he wants because he, and everything else, are essentially random combinations of stardust that will eventually be recycled into other random combinations of stardust? This is why the meaning of life can never be answered. Will chose to follow Skylar to California because that is what made him happy. I don’t think there is a wrong or right way to live life, but I do believe that anyone who is questioning their spot in the world should do whatever makes them happy.
The film Good Will Hunting is a creatively crafted story about a young man’s quest to find where he belongs in life. Will realizes that he doesn’t need to hide who he is. Hiding will not allow someone to get anywhere and isn’t how life should be lived. It is the unanswered questions of tomorrow and the thrill of companionship that push people and motivate people to throw themselves into the world. Whether you decide to drive off into the distance after the love of your life, or decide to build a terroristic empire of mayhem, just remember to strive for happiness in life and show the world the other six-sevenths of who you are.
