Good Will Hunting
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This paper will discuss the relationship between Will Hunting and the psychologist Sean Mcguire in the movie Good Will Hunting. The struggles that occur between these main characters will be analyzed and their meanings found. A basic outline of the movie will be included to give the larger picture and its influence upon the two men.
An Analysis of the Movie “Good Will Hunting” and the Main Characters Will Hunting and Sean Mcguire
Outline:
1. Description of the Movie
a. Setting of the movie
b. Introduction of the main characters
2. The Main Characters and their problem
a. Will Huntings Problem and Seans intervention.
b. Development of the problem and their solutions
3. The final development of the Characters
a. A solution is found between the two characters
b. Resolution is made and the ending of movie
Good Will Hunting is the Miramax movie written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and directed by Gus Van Sant. Starring the two Academy Award winning writers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, plus Academy Award winning actor Robin Williams, Academy Award nominee Minnie Driver, and Stellen Skarsgard the movie went on to be nominated for 9 Academy Awards and win two The movie is based around the life of Will Hunting (Matt Damon), who is a troubled orphan growing in the slums of South Boston, referred to as “Southie”. A reviewer noted on the personal relationship between Affleck and Damon, based on having truly raised in South Boston: “A good example of this is a brief transaction early in the film in which Affleck buys a hamburger for one of his moocher buddies. When the kid says he only has 16 cents, Affleck holds on to the burger, telling him that he can pay a few cents a week and put the sandwich on layaway. After some angry yelling, Affleck eventually gives in (as youre sure he always does) and forks the hamburger over. This innocuous little exchange speaks volumes about these two guys and their past history, and is funny to boot. Its honest and graceful.” (CNN Website)
Will is a genius of unprecedented standards, but is never discovered until a MIT professor, Gerald Lambeau (Stellen Skarsgard) sees Hunting, who is a janitor, solve a complicated math equation that had taken him, a Fields Medal winner, over two years to solve. Hunting solved it on a single night.
Hunting, who holds past grudges, gets in a fight with his three best friends, Chuckie (Ben Affleck), Billy (Cole Hauser), and Morgan (Casey Affleck), against a group of other people. The cops show up and Hunting is arrested for hitting a cop and sent to jail. It is then that Will solves the complicated math equation. He is sent to jail but the professor, who must have had some pull in Boston was able to get Will out of jail if he works on math proofs and see a psychologist.
Hunting agrees, but has a hard time with dealing with a psychologist, scaring five away, two are shown. He then meets Lambeaus old college roommate, Sean Maguire (Robin Williams). It is Maguire that turns Will around because he is not afraid to talk back to him.
The movie really relates the main idea of the story and that is what psychologists call intimacy. The two characters of Will and Sean are the central focus of the movie. Skylark, Chuckie and his friends help in the bigger scope but the relationship between the psychologist Sean and Will is what really counts in this tale.
The main focus is placed on Will, whom has a rare genius to put together abstract math problems and finds it hard to relate to world without getting arrested for doing something violent and rebellious. He grew up in South Boston and the hard streets have jaded him, while his intelligence further isolated him from people and made him hostile to other people. In the beginning of the film, Will is discovered by Lambeu (Stellan Skarsgard) a professor of mathematics, and his well-being becomes a serious issue and he is pursued. While placing a difficult math problem on the chalkboard outside of his office, Will as a janitor figures the problem out but runs away so he will not be caught. Lambeu finds him but Will has gotten into a fight in the ghetto with a bunch of guys he did not like and is arrested. To further complicate the issue, while he was getting arrested he hit a police officer and he ends up being sentenced to jail. Lambeu intervenes and tells the judge about Wills genius but has to, by court order, have the boy see a psychologist. In the interim we find in what is said in a Boiled Movie Review: “After driving away a few therapists with his mind games, Will meets one that can help him. Sean McGuire (Robin Williams) is from the same part of town and is never turned away by Wills horrible behavior. The problem with Will is that he has a lot of talent but he is squandering it by being a punk and turning down “real world” ideas. Both Lambeua and McGuire see this and both want to help Will out.”(Boiled Review Website) this sets the tension in the movie because Will has a real talent for Math but has a hard time seeing the real world in perspective to his ideas. This is where Sean comes in.
Sean Mcguire is the psychologist in the movie that must now take on Wills domineering ego and help him work out his problems in dealing with people and becoming intimate with them. Sean is the perfect person to do this because he was also raised in the South of Boston. He understands the neighborhoods and all the grim realities that are committee there. To boot, he also a Vietnam War veteran who has seen combat and is not fooled for a minute by Wills street behavior. A critic has written: “After his cocky, smart-aleck attitude scares off other therapists, Lambeau turns to his former college buddy Sean McGuire (Robin Williams), now a professor of psychology at a junior college. This psychiatrist is not a pushover like the others, however; he is just as stubborn as Will, and works hard to get inside the prodigys head. At the same time, Skylar tries to get inside his heart, and both hope that Will would grow up and fully realize his potential.” (Good Will Hunting Website) This is why Will could not get past Sean and his style of psychology, because the two had so much in common that Sean could not be snow-balled into thinking that Will was unique.
The psychotherapy sessions do not go well, however, and they end up having a sort of stalemate that goes