10th October 2021
“I gotta go see about a girl”
“Good Will Hunting”, the comedic genius of Robin Williams, and how I stole his line
I fell in love with Robin Williams long, long before his Oscar winning performance in “Good Will Hunting” and in a time that seems like some archaically mythic and impossible long ago age when in the UK we only had 3 (THREE!) television channels to choose from. I have no idea whether it was being aired for the first time or on early re-run, but I fell instantly in love with Robin as an awkward, gangly pre-teenager after seeing him light up my television in the American sitcom “Mork and Mindy” as the titular Mork, an alien from the planet Ork sent to earth to study the bizarre habits of human beings and dressed in his iconic red jumpsuit he bounded around the sound stage of his adopted home with Mindy and into my imagination, and my heart, forevermore.
From the oh so innocent late 1970’s theme tune to Robin’s crazy antics as a visiting alien, his interactions with the locals and Mindy’s family, to his befuddlement and gentle chiding of Mindy herself and his own questioning of the strange world he’d been parachuted into (via his virginal white egg!), just hearing the show’s opening theme tune alerted the young child who turns fifty next year that I was going to smile from ear to ear and laugh uproariously and be in my own private little world with this strange alien being for the next 30 minutes.
Heaven.
Each show concluded with “Mork calling Orson, come in Orson” as he conversed with Orson, a God like guide from his home planet and here Robin always came into his own with so many jokes, observations and such poignant laughter before signing off from the episode with his trademark “Nanu Nanu”. Suffice to say, to this very day I often quote both “Mork calling Orson” (when in distress) or “Nanu Nanu” (signing off texts/emails/Twitter posts) in tribute to the great man who made this big kid laugh so much growing up.
Looking back and reflecting on this early introduction to the genius that was Robin Williams since his desperately sad departure from planet earth, I have often seen the uncanny resemblance between the man himself and the alien character of Mork he so wonderfully embodied in his early days. Both the character and the man share so many characteristics, with Robin clearly not of our earthly plane, a one off in every sense of the word, a genius with very little comedic peer and a bewilderment, shyness, gentleness and wonder of life so in common with his on screen alien character. Both Robin and “Mork” are best remembered for being outrageously funny, crazy, zany, off the wall and wanting the very best for the other people in their lives but equally Mork could be quiet, reserved and introspective, and so could Robin. The legends abound of Robin, shy, reserved and quietly reflective suddenly bursting into life as the curtain rose on a stand up comedy show or a director on a film shouting “Action!”.
Robin had his demons too, and as both his body and his mind broke down towards the end of his life, he took a courageous decision which left a chasm in hundreds of millions of hearts the world over.
Nanu Nanu Robin.
I miss you.
Classically trained as an actor at Juilliard in New York City, Robin fizzed into the local consciousness as a stand up comedian before very quickly doing so the world over, with contemporaries admitting that they simply did not want to follow him on stage.
Because they couldn’t.
How could you follow this ball of improvised energy who ran around the stage like a demented lunatic, tearing the roof off the place whilst doing so? Legends again abound of Robin doing numerous “sets” in different comedy clubs every night, never stopping and always honing his routine for an ever growing audience who adored him. As his career progressed, he juggled both his comedy ambitions in league with his acting talent, but bringing his comedy career to a close for this blog article only, I have returned time and again to three of his critically acclaimed stand up shows over the years, “A Night at the Met” (1986), “Live on Broadway” (2002) and “Weapons of Self Destruction” (2009), with this final show in particular viscerally demonstrating Robin at his madcap and comedic best, barely pausing for breath as he brings the house down, as well as throwing a painful light on his on/off alcohol addiction.
We all have our favourite cinematic memories of Robin and whilst I circle around his film making career before returning in particular to his tour de force performance in “Good Will Hunting”, this blog article is not designed to run through his entire film career. Should you read this, my intention is to appreciate a true genius and one who gave me such an abundance of laughter, fun and joy and whose presence on a cinema screen could only enhance the film he was in, a thousand fold. His film debut saw him tackle the cartoon character “Popeye” in 1980 and in a film I’ve never warmed to, likewise “Moscow on the Hudson” in 1984 before, and just three short years later, his film career would take off into the stratosphere with umpteen iconic roles that will live on forever in cinematic history.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0976780-17bc-4077-a532-d7915f93f869_3247x2371.jpeg)
Portraying real life journalist/disc jockey Adrian Cronauer in the 1987 box office phenomenon “Good Morning Vietnam” seemed an easy fit for Robin and one which still to this day showcases his range of comedic talent and, it’s important to note, a gentle, caring and empathetic screen presence too. Yes he’s electrifying and brilliantly funny with his impersonations and anti-Establishment barbed comments but it should never be overlooked that alongside this comes his (and I guess Cronauer’s) humanity, compassion and warmth to the human family stuck in a foreign land fighting a foreign war. “Dead Poets Society” soon followed and for me a performance that almost eclipses that of his in “Good Will Hunting” as he infuses John Keating, an English teacher, with an abundance of wonder, joy and devilment, as well as encouraging his English class full of young, impressionable but stuffed shirted and privileged young men to think sideways and think for themselves, to create their own worlds, their own individual existences, to stand upon their desks and look at the world in a different way, to rip up both convention as well as their poetry books and most importantly of all, carpe diem — seize the day. This film, and Robin’s performance, continues to be both a certainty to make me cry as well as being high on my favourite films of all time and if you can sneak past the “O Captain, My Captain!” ending to “Dead Poets Society” without leaking a tear or two, then you are a finer man or woman than I.
Robin’s compassion and humanity shines through in “Awakenings”, a film based on a true story of a doctor trying to re-awaken patients from an encephalitic coma like sleeping disorder and his performance is an equal to that of a far more experienced thespian in Robert De Niro and he would don the doctor’s white coat once more eight years later in a lighter, funnier but still very human role in “Patch Adams”. In between, he would excel as Parry in Terry Gilliam’s “The Fisher King”, a disturbed homeless man seeking redemption, the Holy Grail and humanity along the way, and Robin’s anarchy, surreal and bizarre behaviour often blows his co-star (the wonderful Jeff Bridges) clean off the screen.
The mid 1990’s saw a run of films and performances (although I may be myopically biased) that were both incredible and incredibly diverse, from the voice of the Genie in “Aladdin” and a benchmark that all future animated films would try to match but often fail, a cross dressing Scottish nanny in “Mrs Doubtfire”, the familial patriarch and lost son in “Jumanji” and one of his, and the film’s, most underrated cinematic outings in 1998’s “What Dreams May Come”. I loved this film on first release all those years ago but to my shame I have not re-visited it since. I remember being incredibly affected by its themes of life, death, heaven and seeking redemption and being swept along with the emotional ride of the film without fully comprehending it, and have added it to my ever growing pile of film’s I have to re-watch.
The 1990’s drew to a close with another of Robin’s films that left me cold “Bicentennial Man” but considering we’ve swept along his first twenty years of cinema in a few short paragraphs and only three films have disappointed me, it’s not a bad ratio is it?. And as the dawning of the new century approached, so did so many more stand out performances from Robin and again, in such a diverse variety of roles.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0786440-cb29-4cf5-8a34-ce7bdaebccf2_3248x2117.jpeg)
Robin commenced the new century with two of his most underrated and unloved roles but being the contrarian that I am I enjoy bucking such trends with my personal love for both. In “One Hour Photo” he portrays Seymour Parrish, a manager of a photo processing store in one of his more silent and quiet performances on screen. Still mesmeric and captivating, his performance is also a study in compulsive and obsessive behaviour that borders on psychotic and unhealthily strange as he delves into the lives of the people captured on the photos he develops and an obsession that runs in parallel with his own loneliness. It’s a marvel of a performance and one that deserves repeat viewings. As does his portrayal of Walter Finch under the genius directorial gaze of Christopher Nolan in “Insomnia”. Robin here again is quiet, subdued and disturbed as the obvious killer in a back water town that sees very little daylight and very little criminality either. It’s not a spoiler to suggest that Robin plays the “bad guy” here, more that his performance is beautifully and disturbingly underplayed against the might and bombast of Al Pacino, but even more so that Robin may be a central character in this psychological drama but he brilliantly seems more immune to the drama surrounding him than either Pacino or co-star Hillary Swank who are tasked with unravelling it.
Robin would add further voice talent roles for animated films such as “Robots” (2005) and the growing “Happy Feet” franchise as well as joining another growing franchise with the “Night at the Museum” films before three films of varying quality drew his cinematic legacy to a close. “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn” and “Boulevard” (Robin again on brilliant, if disturbing form) were released shortly after his untimely death in 2014 but I wish to end with his brilliant portrayal of Lance in “World’s Greatest Dad” as I adore this troubling film and for Robin’s presence in it. Directed by lifelong friend Bobcat Goldthwait (he of 1980’s Police Academy fame and now brilliant and thoughtful director in his own right), do not be fooled by the title of the film as Robin is anything but the greatest Father in the world. He’s lonely, under appreciated, a dreamer who’s dream has seemingly gone forever and a distanced, unhappy Father to his teenage son in a disturbingly bleak, dark and often difficult watch of a film. No spoilers, but events transpire to alter all of these life situations and there is a somewhat tricky path to redemption, but whether he takes it or not is up to you. In the category of “not a film for everyone”, but in the trusted hands of his lifelong friend, there is dark humour to be found too and it’s just a tragedy that seven years on from his death I don’t have further instances of his cinematic and comedic genius to appreciate here.
But his legacy will live on, of that I have no doubt.
So we return to 1998 and “Good Will Hunting” but first a year earlier as a similar theme will develop as I turn this rambling tale a little closer to a personal home. In 1997 I was hanging out with a young lady whom I shall call “Little Claire”. Now, Claire was little, there is no doubt about that and nor am I casting aspersions about her. She was indeed tiny! Friends from both sides assumed we were dating but we weren’t as I would’ve no doubt been my usual self and destroyed what we had, which at the time was a laugh and a joke over common ground and one of which was going to the cinema. We used to go an Odeon Cinema in the North End district of Portsmouth which, to the best of my knowledge and recollection, was the only cinema in the city at the time with two screens. Two! What luxury! Before the advent of an out of city multi screen behemoth and before this particular cinema would be converted into a pub (and pubs converted into flats and humans converted into cyborgs……oh, sorry!), we would visit this particular cinema with the aim of attending a “Double Bill”. In more recent times, and with the predominance everywhere now of multi screened popcorn selling franchises that also show films on a screen, it has been my Saturday tradition with my lad for us to regularly attend Double Bills of whatever films take our fancy. I enjoy this little piece of cinematic nostalgia and the thrill it gives me (and my lad more recently) of knowing we’re having in effect a day the cinema.
Two films.
Spot of sustenance.
Few laughs.
Another memory to add to the bank.
Now, returning to 1997 and into 1998, “Little Claire” and I did this regularly and on two occasions failed miserably! I can’t recollect either of the other films involved in the proposed Double Bills, but I distinctly recall being “forced” due to a sell out on one screen to watch “Grosse Point Blank” (a brilliantly dark comedy that I still adore) one day and then much later, again after a sell out in another screen, only being able to watch “Good Will Hunting”. Months apart, these two films would make a tremendous double bill of their own now, but separately, we went on two occasions for a double bill and had to settle for a twisted, off the wall and blackest of dark comedies and, “Good Will Hunting”.
Not that we knew this at the time, but “Good Will Hunting” would propel the signature cast and crew into the cinematic stratosphere in the years that followed and for Robin, another Oscar nomination (his fourth) and finally a deserved a win. He won his Oscar ahead of Anthony Hopkins (Amistad), Greg Kinnear (As Good As It Gets), Burt Reynolds (Boogie Nights) and Robert Forster (Jackie Brown). Quite the line up. Quite the performances and, paradoxically for me, quite the tug of the heart strings, as Robert Forster (Rest in Peace you beautiful man) tears my heart to pieces in “Jackie Brown”, still Quentin Tarantino’s finest film and which still, numerous re-watches later, elicits the same reaction of “DON’T LET HER GO MAX!” from me.
Every.
Single.
Time.
So Robin beat out the strongest possible competition for a Golden Statuette he clearly desired to win and very definitely deserved to. His genuine reaction is something to behold all these years later, as is the reaction of his great friend Billy Crystal (who I think was co-hosting that year) and who could not stop applauding and hugged his friend as though he’d won it himself. On such occasions, actors and actresses are prone to hog an elongated limelight whilst holding their gong, but Robin thanked those around him, made the audience laugh (obviously!), thanked his Dad with an age old joke of his and danced his way off stage.
All very typically Robin.
Writers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck would each go onto incredible film careers that persist to this day, and 23 years later are still writing collaboratively on current or future film scripts, but this, their debuts, remain a high watermark to aim for. Their achievements are far too endless to list and you will have your own favourites but Damon (The Departed, Saving Private Ryan and The Bourne Franchise) together with Affleck (Argo, Gone Girl and The Town) collaborated on a jointly and deeply affecting personal screenplay of two friends “Will” (Damon) and “Chuckie” (Affleck) who along with childhood friends “Morgan” (Casey Affleck) and “Billy” (Cole Hauser) are metaphorically and often quite literally, fighting against the world that surrounds them in South Boston. All have been failed by a system and a world that has seemingly discarded them and in an unseen but easily assumed pact have agreed that no-one breaks into their tightly knit and fiercely defended unit. They’ll “lie down in traffic” for one another, grow old, work construction and bask in the triumphs of their children at little league baseball, but one thing is for certain, no-one breaks into their particular “family”, no-one can be trusted and outsiders to their own close knit world, and that of their hometown of Boston, are ripe for scorn, ridicule and abuse.
Four outsiders in particular receive the verbal and physical abuse this tight knit crew from “Southie” (South Boston) dish out “Clark” (Scott William Winters and more of whom later), “Skylar” (Minnie Driver) who steals Will’s heart and threatens to drive an unknowing and innocent wedge between the friends, “Lambeau” (Stellan Skarsgard) who embodies a MIT Professor with deliberate and skin crawling abhorrence and “Sean” (Robin Williams) a psychiatrist and “Southie” lad too and who is working through his own continuing traumas and life struggles. All of this is helmed and expertly weaved together by the masterful Gus Van Sant (Psycho, Elephant and My Own Private Idaho) and it’s the little touches that continue to impress me all these years later: the reflections in the window after the Will/Clark showdown (and *that* quote), the face off between Will and Sean as Will simply counts down every second of their hour long counselling session and staying mute throughout and thoroughly impressing Sean, the overhead shot of Sean re-enacting Carlton Fisk’s game winning run around the baseball diamond and particularly the short lake scene. In just 3/4 minutes here in particular the director sums up the present position of the film at that time as he shows a cocky Will chiding Sean for his choice of location before dissolving into a full screen focus on Sean as he gently but forcefully rips Will to pieces, before slowly panning out and back to a humbled and bewildered Will.
“Your move Chief!”
Robin enters the film as psychiatrist “Sean” well into the narrative but as soon as he arrives (with one or two narrative and spoiler avoiding exceptions) he stays, and it becomes a two handed affair with Matt Damon as “Will” (as I try to tread the spoiler avoidance line) a math genius and in today’s language a borderline autistic savant who can solve math(s) problems with the flick of a pen or the swipe of a piece of chalk on a blackboard. But he can’t or is unwilling or perhaps does not dare to, solve his own problems. Here, Robin Williams comes into his own. Sure there are jokes, smiles and off the cuff remarks that raise a titter, but it’s the humanity he embodies so magnificently as he slowly and painstakingly coerces a tortured genius to open up and to talk, simply talk, through his troubled and angst ridden mind.
Boy could I wax lyrical about this masterpiece of a film! There is so much more to behold here but I restrain myself for fear of spoilers. Quite simply, if you’ve read this far and haven’t seen “Good Will Hunting”, go see it, and if you’ve seen it before, pour yourself something cold, rustle up some popcorn and watch it again! Bask in the fresh and youthful faces of Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, his brother Casey and the beautiful Minnie Driver. Watch as Stellan Skarsgard puts on a “clinic” of creepy desperation and, if you’re an old emotional soul like me, keep some tissues handy for an Oscar winning performance of soul lifting proportions from Robin Williams.
In the 23 years that have passed us by on the merry road of life since I first watched this masterpiece of storytelling, much has changed. “Little Claire” became a little Mum and I moved away from my hometown and we drifted apart as friends. I truly hope she married her sweetheart Jim and became a Mum again and has a burgeoning family, a husband who adores her and she’s still nagging local schoolchildren into behaving! Claire always took great pleasure in showcasing her charges achievements in her teaching class and I sincerely hope this is still the case to this day. My hometown has changed dramatically since leaving in 1999, with the above cited cinema of double billed delights now a pub and another cinema I often frequented and which used to sit at one of the many exits and entrances to my hometown long since becoming another nondescript building that no longer shows moving pictures on a large screen surrounded by the sweet aroma of freshly cooked popcorn.
I too have changed, dramatically, and very often worryingly over the years, from a go getting career minded idealist to someone who simply wants to be left alone, to drown out the buzzing and beeping of a world I would have found as unrecognisable when I left my hometown 22 years ago and a jigsaw of a life where even though I’ve completed the outline and the edges and I can see the picture forming, there always seems to be a piece missing. It’s probably behind the sofa or hiding from me in the cupboard under the stairs, along with all my old cinema tickets. I became a Father too, a ridiculous concept considering the 27 year old “boy” figure I cut when I left my hometown and who a generation later is a proud parent of a rough diamond cut from the greatest of rock and who shines my sun. He recently hit the milestone age of 18, now a late teenager, official adult, and together with cinema obsessed parents has developed a huge fandom for all things Monty Python (he’s a Python joke jukebox), a horror genre aficionado (and much to my great delight the one film he’d want to be washed up on a Desert Island with is “The Shining”) and he’s a huge admirer of Robin Williams as he’s grown up with a soundtrack of the great man, be it Aladdin, Robots or Happy Feet, or more latterly, Good Morning Vietnam, Mrs Doubtfire and Night at the Museum. I still don’t think he’s ready for the complexities of Good Will Hunting and seeing his soppy old Man sob his heart out over the ending of Dead Poets Society doesn’t, I suppose, exactly fill him with a desire for this masterpiece yet either!
I stole Robin’s line of “I gotta go see about a girl” (or strictly speaking, Matt and Ben’s screenplay written line) in the heady Summer of 2001 when, ambling around a golf course and searching through yet more trees for yet more lost golf balls, my mobile telephone beeped with the receipt of a text message. After a protracted correspondence, I received the message I’d hoped to receive, a long rambling message (I like those!), an acceptance of a date and incredibly detailed, pre SatNav route guidance to a pool hall and a date with a beautiful young lady I shall call “Buns” (name withheld as a poke in the eye often offends and I like my two beautiful brown ones remaining inside my head!).
“I gotta go see about a girl!” I exclaimed to playing partners completely oblivious to my fortune as they were no doubt searching for their own particular balls in their own particular golf trees of sporting despair. A night of pool ensued, games were won, nervous jokes landed and 20 years later I still see this “girl” (young lady obviously) as we jointly parent a son who has his Mother’s beauty and his Father’s sense of frustration and devilment. I’m not a Math genius and I certainly did not experience the cinematic trauma depicted by Will, but I have experienced two prolonged and separate bouts of counselling with a professional who whilst not resembling Robin’s character in the magnificent film above, did help immensely along the way. As did the young lady in question and the incredible human being that is my son’s Mother and the immovable rock from which my diamond son is cast. We have a pact too, that our son will always be our central focus and I’m lucky that nine years on from destroying the candle and the flame that should’ve flickered forever, I get to “see about a girl” (and the incredible human being she is raising for a son) every couple of days.
If you’ve read this far, quick lecture — talking works folks! Whether it be with a mental health professional, a friend, a loved one, a blog, a diary or some scrap thoughts that roll around an overthinking mind. “Talking Therapy” works. And the days of even contemplating or debating whether this makes you weak or emotional or open to ridicule have been over for a long time, so if you read this rambling nonsense this far and it helps just one person?
Mission accomplished.
My son loves to steal lines from films now and even though he hasn’t seen “Good Will Hunting” he adores the triumphant line Will exclaims to Clark after winning the heart (and telephone number) of Skylar.
“I got her number!” Will shouts through the window pane to an annoyed Clark.
“How do you like them apples!”
And I cannot wait for the day my son pulls me aside and whispers into my ear “Hey Dad, guess what?”
“I gotta go see about a girl”.
Thanks for the memories sweet man. I miss you.
“I gotta go see about a girl” can also be found singing and dancing across pages 158 through 176 and the first chapter in Act 3 of my March 2024 self-published book “Golden Sky”.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.