Robin Williams finally won a much-coveted Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor in this drama focusing on the trials and tribulations of a troubled but gifted teenager in Boston.
Will Hunting (Matt Damon) has a short fuse and finds more solace in hanging out with his best friend Chuckie Sullivan (Ben Affleck). He works as a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and manages to crack a complex maths problem left on a board by Prof. Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard)
Whilst visiting a Harvard bar, he watches Chuckie try and chat up a couple of women, one being Skylar (Minnie Driver), but smart-alec student Clark (Scott William Winters) tries to humiliate him. However, Will shows his mind talents by correcting him.
Will and Skylar strike up a friendship. Meanwhile Lambeau discovers Will’s achievement on the board and sets up meetings with various psychologists who are taunted by Will. However, Lambeau tries one more in the form of old college roommate Sean Maguire who manages to get to the heart of Will’s issues as a person – and hopefully try and bring the real person out…
Co-written by Damon and Affleck, who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, GOOD WILL HUNTING represents Miramax at the height of its’ awards success. Williams gives one of the all-time insightful speeches as Lambeau to Damon’s Will. Directed by Gus Van Sant, who directed MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO and the shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO.