Good Will Hunting (1997) Life is Beautiful with Robin Williams (vol.9)
“Sorry, guys, I gotta see about a girl”
Accepting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor at the 1998 Academy Awards, Robin Williams blew kisses to a loudly cheering audience as his first joke landed before candidly admitting “This might be the first time I’m speechless!”. Nervously warming to his task, he thanked the audience once more before graciously acknowledging the “four extraordinary men” (Robert Forster, Anthony Hopkins, Greg Kinnear and Burt Reynolds) he’d bested to land Tinseltown’s golden statuette at the fourth time of asking before turning his thanks inward: for Ben (Affleck) and Matt (Damon) before his second joke landed and “I still wanna see some ID!”, his third gag at director Gus Van Sant he describes as “being so subtle you’re almost subliminal!”, the cast and crew and people of South Boston he describes as a “can of corn”, a “Mazel Tov” greeting to the Weinstein producing team before almost finally but certainly not least, his wife Marsha (Garces Williams) he emotionally describes as “the woman who lights my soul on fire every morning”.
Robin, being Robin, can’t resist a final gag as he points to the heavens in thanks of his father and “When I said I wanted to be an actor he said wonderful, just have a back up profession like welding!” and bringing the house down as he always did, he thanked the audience again and left them laughing as he embraced his great, great friend Billy Crystal, and danced his way off stage.
There was only ever going to be space in our earthly home for one Robin Williams and here in volume 9 of my seemingly never ending ode to joy and love-in appraisal of his greatness, I may as well admit, once again, that I miss the spirit and humanity of his otherworldly genius.
Good Will Hunting was, is and will always be Robin’s film and the reward of an Oscar win merely the official stamp his mesmerizing performance of true greatness deserved. Written by and starring those cherubic young upstarts Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and supported by truly stellar supporting performances from the always enigmatically brilliant Stellan Skarsgård as a well meaning if self-centred and ideologically driven “Professor Gerald Lambeau”, Ben’s brother Casey Affleck in only his fifth, but first major screen outing as wayward, rag-tag youth “Morgan O’Mally”, the brilliant Cole Hauser as “Billy McBride” and fourth member of a tight-knit and loyal group of Southie kids and, in a heavily male dominated film, the forever beautiful Minnie Driver as “Skylar”, a girl Will has to “see about” as he steals his therapist’s pick up line when he was his age in a long ago 1975.
That therapist and fellow kid from the streets of South Boston is “Dr Sean Maguire” and Robin Williams in his career high, heartbreaking and Oscar winning glory.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves.
I’ve seen Good Will Hunting more times than you dear reader, and frankly, it isn’t even close. Nearly 30 years on, the memory is somewhat hazy these days but I either watched this film at my local cinema in Portsmouth during the first week of its UK release, as part of a double-bill with Grosse Pointe Blank (also starring Minnie Driver) or (I did say my memory was fading), Good Will Hunting was fully booked and my partner in cinematic crime in those days “Little Claire” and I watched Grosse Pointe Blank instead before returning the next day to watch Good Will Hunting. Going to see double-bills was our “thing”, Little Claire and I, and I distinctly remember, despite the fading memory, sitting in one of my very first cars in the cinema car park after watching Good Will Hunting and talking endlessly and excitedly at and to each other about the incredible film we’d just watched together. The film then became one of my earliest DVD purchases as I made that tedious transition from VHS cassette tapes to discs and a DVD I still have to this very day alongside an all singing, all dancing bonus filled extras imported version of the film from the USA. Along life’s highway I’ve extolled the virtues of the film to any and everyone I’ve come into contact with, I’ve comfortably (comfortably) watched it at least once if not more than once every year since 1998 and bringing this rambling introductory tale up to date, I recently introduced the film to my beautiful son who, I’m pleased to say, shares a little of my love for all things Robin Williams and a lot more for cinema and movies in general. “I got her number. How do you like them apples?” is his favourite line in the film and we regularly quote this at each other whenever we have something to share or to just make the other laugh.
The power of cinema, ladies and gentlemen.
As is my adoration for the film as a whole. The kid from the wrong side of the social tracks made good. A self-effacing genius with a God-like gift. An abuse survivor. A loyal member of a childhood gang of friends who’ll “lie down in traffic” for one another. A lover. A fighter. A renegade. A truth teller. A therapist. A professor. The bonds of brotherhood. The loyalty of friends.
And a “scared shitless kid” who has simply “gotta see about a girl”.
Breaking my own maxim for all of my film reviews, this one will be heavy on dialogue and even heavier on spoilers. I can’t resist and I make no apologies. Not on this occasion. For this is Good Will Hunting. A masterpiece. A film that if it isn’t included on every film school’s syllabus for study sessions, it damn well should be.
And it’s Robin McLaurin Williams at the very peak of his acting powers and here is my dissection of his Oscar winning performance, scene by beautiful scene:
Scene 1
Entering the film after 33 minutes and deep into the first Act, we find “Dr Sean Maguire” (Robin Williams) at Bunker Hill Community College clad in a crumpled shirt and dowdy cardigan trying his utmost to entertain, engage and inform a largely disinterested and bored class of late teen psychology students. As Sean stresses the importance of gaining the trust of their future clients to his students, we cut to “Professor Gerald Lambeau” (Stellan Skarsgård) walking the corridors of the college in search of his old college roommate and now finding his classroom, watches his old friend through the glassed window of his classroom door as he jokingly continues his lecture “If they don’t trust you, you’re never going to get them to sleep with you!”. Now cutting back inside the classroom to a close-up on Sean, he makes his class laugh as he jokingly announces “Nail ’em while they’re vulnerable. That’s my motto!” before his attention is drawn to his old college friend entering his classroom, taking his breath away for an instance in astonishment at seeing this ghost of his long ago past, a ghost he now announces to his class “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are in the presence of greatness. Professor Gerald Lambeau. Field’s Medal winner for combinational mathematics, the Nobel Prize for mathematics”. Gerald or more regularly known throughout the film as simply “Gerry”, nods in embarrassment to the class as Sean now wraps up his class for the day before looking ahead to Monday’s lecture on Freud and “why he did enough cocaine to kill a small horse!”. Following the college bell and during the departure of his students, Sean warmly if warily shakes his old friend’s hand as they too depart his classroom and entering the corridor, Gerry has “something interesting” he eagerly wishes to discuss with his old college buddy.
Scene 2
We cut to the two old college friends in an opulent restaurant amid talk of Sean missing their regular, yearly reunions. He’s been busy he states but only in a half-truth as he’s clearly been busy, but locked in a continual grief for his recently deceased and dearly departed soulmate and wife, Nancy. Gerry apologises for missing the funeral as Sean rather bitterly thanks him for his condolence card as tensions begin to rise rapidly between these polar opposite, if old college friends.
A brief cut in the scene allows me to introduce you for the first time to the hero of our story “Will Hunting” (Matt Damon) telling his best friend “Chuckie Sullivan” (Ben Affleck) that following their recent street fight he’s out of jail only on probation and on the condition he works with the Professor on advanced mathematical equations and that he visits a therapist twice a week. As he recounts his tale of woe to his best friend, the remaining members of their gang of four from the streets of South Boston “Morgan O’Mally” (Casey Affleck) and “Billy McBride” (Cole Hauser) are wrestling playfully nearby.
Returning quickly to Sean and Gerry, we find the Professor trying desperately to persuade Sean to take on Will as one of his patients. “This boy is incredible” he enthuses, and “I’ve never seen anything like him” as director Gus Van Sant flicks constantly between the two old friends with Sean deep in thought as Gerry espouses Will’s potential greatness in league with the story of a remote Indian man and self taught genius in advanced mathematics who was enticed to leave the security of his homeland to travel to Cambridge in England to work on and compose “the most exciting math theory ever done”. He sees the same greatness in Will, but he’s “defensive” and “I need someone to get through to him”. Puzzled, Sean asks why him and why now? Gerry’s response both pleases and surprises him as both Will and Sean have the same background and are from the same neighbourhood. Swilling the wine in his glass Sean smiles as he lightly announces “Boy genius from Southie” before somewhat ruining the moment, and raising the tensions between them once more, by asking how many therapists Gerry had been to before approaching him. Annoyed but not surprised to hear five therapists have come before him and he’s essentially Gerry’s last thought and indeed hope, Sean smiles as Gerry continues to plead with him to see and meet with Will, if only once a week to begin with…
Scene 3
We cut to Will descending the outside stairs leading to Sean’s office as, off camera, Gerry warns his old friend “It’s a poker game with this kid. Don’t let him know what you got”. He also warns Sean, somewhat disparagingly, that Will has probably read his book in advance of their first meeting today, with Sean muttering “If he can find it” in a self-deprecating retort to his old friend. After entering Sean’s office and largely ignoring both Gerry’s introduction of Sean and his warm welcome for a stranger in his office, Will slumps immediately into the first chair he can find as he announces “I’m pumped. Let’s let the healing begin!”. Sean now asks both Gerry and his assistant “Tom” (John Mighton) to leave the office, with Gerry somewhat reluctantly agreeing and now alone, Will is deliberately obtuse and difficult as he ignores Sean’s beaming and welcoming smiles amid his equally warm and welcoming opening questions. Will dominates their early exchanges, ignoring Sean’s questions before commenting on his vast array of books although he’s clearly not interested and being deliberately antagonistic, a repeating pattern seen earlier in the film as he immediately destroyed the trust and mocked the professionalism of two therapists he left bemused, distraught and dismayed by his actions.
Taking a cigarette from the packet but not yet lighting it, Will rises from his chair to inspect Sean’s books from a closer range as Van Sant’s camera lingers on a framed picture of Sean with his platoon buddies during the Vietnam War, and now Will prowling around his office as he announces “You wanna read a real history book, read Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”. That book’ll fucking knock you on your ass”. Lighting his cigarette now, Will moans that “fucking people baffle me” as Sean tries to chime into the conversation by asking if he likes “Manufacturing Consent” by Noam Chomsky, but Will largely ignores the question before continuing to disparage the vast shelves of books that line the walls of Sean’s office. There is at least a semblance of a conversation now between a patient, smiling therapist and a young man prowling his office like a caged lion. Talk turns from the merits, or otherwise, of smoking, to fitness workouts and how much each man can bench press as Will retakes his seat and after allowing the conversation to fizzle out and largely ignoring any of Sean’s continuing questions, his eyes are drawn to a small painting leaning against a window on the other side of the office.
Rising once more to his feet, Will is now seen in close-up as he inspects the painting before he half turns in the direction of Sean as he crudely announces “This is a real piece of shit”. Asking Will sarcastically what he “really thinks”, Sean approaches the young lion testing his patience and dominating his arena as Will continues to stare avidly at the painting and the “concerns” he has. A lively back and forth ensues as Will describes the colouring as concerning, with Sean jokingly responding that it’s “paint by number”. Will isn’t done yet as he now fully turns in Sean’s direction and “I think you’re about one step away from cutting your fucking ear off” to which Sean retorts, again in a lighthearted and upbeat manner “You think I should move to the south of France, change my name to Vincent?”. Constantly pushing and upping the ante of the conversation, Will deduces that his latest therapist is in the middle of a painful personal storm and “the sky’s falling on your head, the waves are crashing over your little boat” and through his existential angst and the medium of the painting Will has now so adequately described, this is the reason he became a therapist. Smiling, Sean agrees before tapping Will on the shoulder and asking him to return to his seat so he can “do my job”, but Will is far from finished yet.
“Maybe you married the wrong woman” he impertinently announces, thus ratcheting up the tension in a scene that was threatening to bubble over but through Sean’s professionalism and smiles had remained lighthearted and serene, and far from the storm depicted in his painting and the angry storm Will is determined to see come to fruition. “Maybe you should watch your mouth” Sean replies angrily, but Will is obviously pleased with himself that he’s antagonising yet another therapist in yet another existential game only he’s enjoying. Director Van Sant now focusses wholly on the painting before shifting to Will as he again suggests Sean married the wrong woman and maybe she was cheating on him, sending him spiraling into a depressive fug, riding the waves of the raging storm of his painting. Beyond angry, Sean approaches Will before grabbing him violently by the throat: “If you ever disrespect my wife again, I will end you. I will fucking end you. Got that Chief?”. Struggling to breathe and with fear flowing from his bulging eyes, Will can only respond with a simple “Time’s Up”, but he’s clearly won this particularly distasteful first battle of the wills between them.
Walking past Sean and then casually past both the Professor and his assistant Tom sitting outside Sean’s office before ascending the stairs, Gerry enters his friend’s office to find Sean with his back to him as he stares at his painting. Sensing that their meeting had followed the same pattern of previous therapists before him, Gerry honestly states “Look, I’ll understand if you don’t want to meet him again”. Sean has an equally simple and abrupt answer: “Thursday, 4:00. Make sure the kid’s here”. As Gerry leaves the office, the scene ends with Sean looking down at the floor, broken, ashamed of his reaction and behaviour perhaps but utterly broken by their first session together. Slowly raising his eyes from the floor to the painting on the nearby windowsill, Danny Elfman’s beautiful if haunting score truly kicks in for the first time with a gentle, mournful orchestral choir as the scene fades and dissolves into…
Scene 4
A close-up of an overflowing kitchen sink full of unwashed pots and pans and what appears to be an empty whiskey bottle and after a slow camera move backward displaying an even more cluttered and unkempt kitchen sink dominating a tiny kitchen, we now slowly zoom in on Sean, still accompanied by Danny Elfman’s distant, ghost-like voices of an orchestral choir, sat at his writing desk and lost in thought with only a typewriter and a small glass of whiskey or rum for company. Looking both downward and physically, spiritually and mentally down, Sean is bereft, lost and deep in melancholic thoughts as taking a sip from his whiskey or rum (his wedding ring catching the eye) he places a hand over his mouth as he falls ever deeper in thought.
After cutting to Will and Skylar on a fun filled, picture perfect date together…
Scene 5
We cut to Will bounding down the stairs on the approach to Sean’s office before entering, smoking, and with a dismissive “You again, huh?”, Sean walks past him and plucks his jacket and cap from the coat stand by the door before replying simply: “Come with me”, and my favourite scene of many, many favourite scenes of the film is about to commence. Beginning and ending with the same wide shot of a public park, a bench and four swans regally making their way on the river of life before them, Will can’t resist an early jibe at his therapist as he exclaims “So what’s this? A taster’s choice moment between two guys?” as director Van Sant now moves to a close-up of Sean as Will (off camera and then only briefly on camera before the director reverts back to Sean) again tries to dominate the coming conversation with a cutting “This is really nice. You got a thing for swans? Is this like a fetish?”. Van Sant’s camera is now on Sean and although Will is occasionally heard he is rarely seen as his therapist now holds court:
Sean: “Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me… fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and I haven’t thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?”
Will: “No”
Sean: “You’re just a kid, you don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talkin’ about”
Will: “Why thank you”
Sean: “It’s all right. You’ve never been out of Boston”
Will: “Nope”
Sean: “So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You’re a tough kid. And I’d ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, “once more unto the breach dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I’d ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet…”
Van Sant now moves his camera slowly to the right capturing Will in the shot looking downward, listening, but unable to look at Sean…
Sean: “…But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms “visiting hours” don’t apply to you. You don’t know about real loss, ’cause it only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much. And I look at you… I don’t see an intelligent, confident man… I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you’re a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart…”
Van Sant now moves his camera to focus squarely on Will who whilst listening intently still can’t look at Sean. His eyes, moist with tears, flicker nervously and occasionally towards Sean, but they never linger…
Sean: “You’re an orphan, right?”
A camera change again and back to Sean in close-up after Will nods that he is an orphan…
Sean: “You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you?”
Another change of camera angle and back squarely on Will on the brink of tears:
Sean: “Personally… I don’t give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can’t learn anything from you, I can’t read in some fuckin’ book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I’m fascinated. I’m in”
Camera change back to Sean…
Sean: “But you don’t want to do that do you sport? You’re terrified of what you might say”
Van Sant cuts between the two dominant angles on both Sean and Will before, finally, back on Sean…
Sean: “Your move, Chief”
After a brief glance at Will, Sean walks away from the bench they’ve shared as Will, on the brink of tears, swallows hard and glances briefly in the direction of his departing therapist. The scene ends as it began with a wide shot of the public bench and river or pond in the background, but now with only Will sitting alone on the bench.
Reprising one of the film’s earliest scenes, we now see Chuckie calling for Will, coffee in hand, as he picks him up at home ahead of a hard day’s toil on a building site before later that night, and with a pouring rain falling all around him, Will calls Skylar from a payphone but nervously hangs up without speaking before returning to his three friends waiting for him in the car and driving away through the continuing rain…
Scene 6
We cut to Will, slumped in a chair in Sean’s office taking a cigarette from his pocket but denied the opportunity to smoke by Sean. Putting away his cigarettes, we cut back to Sean in a brighter green coloured shirt and cardigan before returning to Will scanning Sean’s office with his eyes yet also with very little interest in what he sees. Director Van Sant once again moves his camera between the two men as Sean’s eyes follow those of Will’s as he notices a wall mounted clock and now, a close-up of Will counting the passing seconds by repetitively pressing his thumbs together in rhythm with the passing of time. A circular pattern emerges: from the clock to Sean watching Will, and the young man counting down the seconds of their session as he looks at Sean, eventually winning his silent battle of wills.
Professor Lambeau: “What do you mean you didn’t talk? You were in there for an hour?”
Sean: “He just sat there counting the seconds until the session was over. Pretty impressive actually”
Professor Lambeau: “Why would he do that?”
Sean: “To prove to me he doesn’t have to talk to me if he doesn’t want to”
Professor Lambeau: “What is this? Some kind of staring contest between two kids from the same neighbourhood?”
Sean: “Yeah it is, and I can’t talk first”
After Will proves a mathematical theory to the consternation of Professor Lambeau’s long time colleague (and to the Professor’s sheer joy) we dissolve into yet another of my favourite scenes of the film…
Scene 7
Dressed now in a pale blue shirt and jacket rather than his somewhat aged and dowdy cardigans, we find Sean whistling in his office during yet another of his silent games with Will. As director Van Sant circles his camera at first behind and now in front of Will, he looks bemused at his whistling therapist before perhaps turning his attention once more to the wall mounted clock but certainly the ceiling as he opens his mouth to begin speaking, but stops himself as he looks at Sean, his whistling stopped, and appearing to be fast asleep. Eventually, Will loses his game of silence with the older kid from South Boston sat opposite him:
Will: “You know, I was on this plane once. And I’m sittin’ there and the captain comes on and he does his whole, “We’ll be cruising at 35,000 feet,” then he puts the mike down but he forgets to turn it off. Then he turns to the copilot and goes, “You know, all I could go for right now is a fuckin’ blow job and a cup of coffee.” So the stewardess fuckin’ goes bombin’ up from the back of the plane to tell him the mic’s still on, and this guy behind me goes, “Hey, hon, don’t forget the coffee!”
Awake and laughing, Sean asks Will if he’s ever been on an aeroplane, a question Will shakes off before he returns to one of Sean’s observations when they were sat on the bench together and “I have been laid, you know?” as we cut back and forth during a real conversation and not the silent, staring games of before, as Will confirms he went on a date recently with a smart girl so different from his vacuous conquests of the past. Warming to the conversation, Sean states “Well, call her up Romeo” before Will responds “Why, so I can realise she’s not that smart? That she’s fucking boring?” and then contradicting himself, his psyche fully on display “This girl’s like, fucking perfect right now. I don’t wanna ruin that”. Sean replies that maybe he’s too perfect right now and he doesn’t want to ruin that, a “super philosophy” he continues, “That way, you can go through your entire life without ever having to know anybody”.
The ice between them well and truly thawed, Sean admits with a laugh that his wife used to fart when she was nervous or even when fast asleep, as well as a litany of her personal idiosyncrasies. Real belly laughs now. A real breakthrough in their relationship. The real beginnings of a friendship of two kids from the same streets of South Boston, laughing together. As their back and forth continues, the camera shakes constantly as, according to legend and the actors themselves, Robin improvises a number of lines that have Matt Damon roaring with genuine laughter and at everyone’s insistence, including director Gus Van Sant, they left these brief few seconds in the film as they simply couldn’t be consigned to the cutting room floor. Back on script, Sean smiles as he recounts the beautiful memories of his wife to his new found friend. With his heart open and on the line, he tells Will that she knew all his “peccadillos” and, brilliantly, “People call these things “imperfections”, but they’re not. That’s the good stuff” before pointedly stating that Will isn’t perfect, nor is the girl he’s dating, but “The question is whether you’re perfect for each other”. Opening up too with his first genuine question for Sean, Will asks if he will ever re-marry? “My wife’s dead” Sean replies solemnly and even when pressed further, Sean reiterates that she’s dead, enabling Will to turn the tables on his therapist by parroting his own philosophical speech of earlier and going through the rest of his life without ever knowing anybody else.
Smiling nervously, Sean looks at the wall mounted clock before announcing their session is over.
After sneaking into Skylar’s dormitory and profusely apologising, and indeed lying for the first time that he hasn’t had the time to call her, Will asks for a second chance at a second date and after agreeing to this date the following day, returns to her dormitory within minutes with a handwritten medical proof she’s working on and, well, her studies can wait, the greyhound track awaits their pleasure and following a joyous, laughter filled date, Will lets loose with another little white lie regarding his supposed larger family as a way of self-protection before we cut to yet another of my favourite scenes of the film…
Scene 8
Cutting to an overhead shot of Sean’s office we see a round coffee table in the centre of the screen surrounded by four chairs equally spaced out in each corner with Sean sitting in the top left chair and Will bottom left, as he admits to genuinely reading his book last night. Dissolving now into the office itself, Will, relaxed with his right foot resting on the nearby coffee table, asks if Sean still counsels veterans, to which he admits he had to give this up when his wife Nancy got sick. An air of friendship abounds as Will feels comfortable enough to genuinely ask his new found friend whether he wonders how his life would have turned out had he not met his wife? Through reassuring smiles, Sean responds that he’s in pain, bereft and has regrets as a whole, but he doesn’t regret a single day he spent with Nancy.
Will: “So, when did you know, like, that she was the one for you?”
Sean: “October 21st, 1975”
Will: “Jesus Christ. You know the fuckin’ date?”
Sean: “Oh yeah. ’Cause it was Game 6 of the World Series. Biggest game in Red Sox history”
Will: “Yeah, sure”
We cut to real life stock footage of the game from a seemingly wet and cold Fenway Park in Boston…
Sean: “My friends and I had, you know, slept out on the sidewalk all night to get tickets”
Will: “You got tickets?”
We return to real life stock footage once more, and the beginning of the game…
Sean: “Yep. Day of the game. I was sittin’ in a bar, waitin’ for the game to start, and in walks this girl. Oh, it was an amazing game, though. You know, bottom of the eighth, Carbo ties it up at 6–6. It went to twelve”
Real life stock footage once more, and number 27 Carlton Fisk stepping up to the plate…
Sean: “Bottom of the twelfth, in stepped Carlton Fisk. Old Pudge. Steps up to the plate, you know, and he’s got that weird stance. And BAM! He clocks it. High fly ball down the left field line! Thirty-five thousand people, on their feet, yellin’ at the ball, but that’s not because of Fisk. He’s wavin’ at the ball like a madman. He’s going, “Get over! Get over! Get OVER!”
A beautiful merger now between real life stock footage and Sean recreating Carlton Fisk’s Home Run as both men are on their feet, smiling and laughing at the memory…
Sean: “And then it HITS the foul pole. OH, he goes apeshit, and 35,000 fans, you know, they charge the field, you know?”
Will: “Yeah, and he’s fuckin’ bowlin’ people out of the way!”
Another beautiful merger of real life with recreation as director Van Sant brilliantly captures Sean barging Will out of the way as he rounds the chairs (here, acting as bases) and copying the triumphant run around the bases of the Red Sox number 27
Sean: “Goin’, “God! Get out of the way! Get ’em away!” Banging people…”
Will: “I can’t fuckin’ believe you had tickets to that fuckin’ game!”
Sean: “Yeah!”
Will: “Did you rush the field?”
Sean: “No, I didn’t rush the fuckin’ field; I wasn’t there”
Will: “What?”
Sean: “No — I was in a bar havin’ a drink with my future wife”
Will: “You missed Pudge Fisk’s home run?”
Sean: “Oh, yeah”
Will: “To have a fuckin’ drink with some lady you never met?”
Sean: “Yeah, but you shoulda seen her; she was a stunner”
Will: “I don’t care if Helen of Troy walks in the room, that’s Game 6!”
Sean: “Oh, Helen of Troy…”
Will: “Oh my God; and who are these fuckin’ friends of yours, they let you get away with that?”
Sean: “Oh… they had to”
Will: “W-w-w-what’d you say to them?”
Sean: “I just slid my ticket across the table, and I said, “Sorry, guys; I gotta see about a girl”
Will: “I gotta go see about a girl?”
Sean: “Yeah”
Will: “That’s what you said? And they let you get away with that?”
Sean: “Oh, yeah. They saw in my eyes that I meant it”
Will: “You’re kiddin’ me”
Sean: “No, I’m not kiddin’ you, Will. That’s why I’m not talkin’ right now about some girl I saw at a bar twenty years ago and how I always regretted not going over and talking to her. I don’t regret the 18 years I was married to Nancy. I don’t regret the six years I had to give up counseling when she got sick. And I don’t regret the last years when she got really sick. And I sure as hell don’t regret missin’ the damn game. That’s regret”
Will: “Wow… Woulda been nice to catch that game, though”
Sean: “I didn’t know Pudge was gonna hit a homer!”
The friends take their seats in Sean’s office once more, amid such beautiful laughter…
Two dates follow between Will and Skylar, the second of which is with some of his “brothers” at his local bar. His white lie continues to hold, just…
Scene 9
We cut to Sean re-telling Will’s stewardess and blow-job joke to a local bar owner as Gerry arrives for their pre-arranged meeting. Sheepish and awkward in a world he would never ordinarily frequent, Gerry relaxes after a warm handshake of welcome from the local bar owner before Sean orders drinks and sandwiches and “put it on my tab”. Smiling, the bar owner asks if he’s ever going to pay his skyrocketing bar bill to which Sean replies “I got the winning lottery ticket right here, Chief”. $12 million won’t cover it, but “It’ll cover your sex change operation” Sean responds with a laugh, as the two old college friends sit at a table in the rear of the bar near the pool table. As two bar regulars play pool, director Van Sant zooms his camera past Gerry and on to Sean as the Professor is eager for an update on his progress as his telephone is “ringing off the hook with job offers”. Sean has words of caution for his old friend as they are still “Banging away at the past” and he’s nowhere near ready at this time to consider such offers.
As with every encounter between these college friends of two decades ago, tensions begin to rise between them which is slowly dissipated by the arrival of the bar owner with their drinks and sandwiches. Angered at a lack of progress, Gerry entangles the bar owner in a “bet” he can settle between himself and Sean as he asks him whether he’s heard of historical figures such as Jonas Salk, Albert Einstein and, to make a point, himself, Gerald Lambeau. The owner confirms he’s heard of and aware of the first two names, but not the third as Gerry thanks him for settling the bet and then assures Sean that Will’s progress is not about him (but of course it is) and “I’m nothing compared to this young man”. Gerry now compares Will to Albert Einstein and he desperately doesn’t want to see him fritter away his potential only to get drunk with his buddies every night. “Very dramatic, Gerry” responds Sean, before he has a bet and indeed argument of his own to settle:
Sean: “Hey, Gerry, In the 1960s there was a young man that graduated from the University of Michigan. Did some brilliant work in mathematics. Specifically bounded harmonic functions. Then he went on to Berkeley. He was assistant professor. Showed amazing potential. Then he moved to Montana, and blew the competition away”
Gerry: “Yeah, so who was he?”
Sean: “Ted Kaczynski”
Gerry: “Haven’t heard of him”
Sean (shouting to bar owner) “Hey, Timmy!”
Timmy: “Yo!”
Sean: “Who’s Ted Kaczynski?”
Timmy: “Unabomber”
Even after making his point and winning whatever constitutes as a human bet between them, Gerry remains insistent that the “kid” needs direction and all this is way above their bickering and personal rivalry. Sean cautions again from what he sees as manipulation as Gerry pontificates, amid rising voices and tensions again between them, that this is important, Will is important, to the world and indeed the world of mathematics. However, Sean wants to protect Will, and give him time to breathe and find out what he really wants from the world, allowing Gerry to counter him and accuse him of holding Will back, a mirror to his own sheltered life and what appears, to Gerry at least, as failure. Sean explodes at his old friend as he calls him an “arrogant fucking prick”, but it matters not to Gerry as regardless of Sean’s wishes or indeed their discussions today, he’s already set Will up for an interview and a meeting he’s attending even as they speak…
Rather than attending the interview, Will explains to Gerry “I had a date, so I sent my chief negotiator”, namely a badly dressed Chuckie! During his date with Skylar, she laments over coffee that she’s been so close to Will in geographic terms for four years, but they’ve only just met and later, back in her dormitory, she asks him to move to California with her. Will, acting defensively and leaving before someone else leaves and abandons him, turns a beautiful opportunity with the woman he dearly loves into a bitter argument, admitting that he doesn’t have 12 brothers and his bodily scars aren’t from various surgeries but horrible physical abuse at the hands of his step-father. Angry, disillusioned and protecting himself from being abandoned once more, Will is quickly burning bridges with everyone in his life except for Chuckie, Morgan, Billy and Sean and now sarcastically responding to a question from a NSA operative during an interview, we cut to his continuing answer in Sean’s office…
Scene 10
Will: “…But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels are hidin’. Fifteen hundred people that I never met, never had no problem with, get killed. Now the politicians are saying, “Send in the Marines to secure the area,” ’cause they don’t give a shit. It won’t be their kid over there gettin’ shot, just like it wasn’t them when their number got called ’cause they were in the National Guard. It’ll be some kid from Southie over there takin’ shrapnel in the ass. He comes back to find the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he got back from, and the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job cause he’ll work for 15¢ a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. Of course, the oil companies used a skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain’t helpin’ my buddy at $2.50 a gallon. They’re takin’ their sweet time bringin’ the oil, of course. Maybe they even took the liberty to hire an alcoholic skipper, who likes to drink martinis and fuckin’ play slalom with the icebergs. It ain’t too long till he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy’s out of work, he can’t afford to drive, so he’s walkin’ to the fuckin’ job interviews, which sucks because the shrapnel in his ass is givin’ him chronic hemorrhoids. Meanwhile, he’s starvin’, ’cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat, the only blue plate special they’re servin’ is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker Steak. So what did I think? I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ better. I figure, fuck it. While I’m at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard?
I can be elected president”
Deadpan and somewhat deflating Will’s sarcastic balloon, Sean asks him if he “feels alone?” and does he have someone, anyone he considers a soulmate and, importantly, does he have anyone that challenges him? Taken aback by Sean’s bluntness, Will offers his best friend Chuckie as evidence, as well as his other friends and historical figures of the past he cherishes. But with no-one challenging him, Sean is now challenging him amid rising tensions between these now firm friends and whilst he admits to being pleased he won’t be working for the Government, he’s also “bound by nothing”, so what is he passionate about? Will reverts to type again, quoting historical figures of the past and staying and living here for the rest of his life, with his friends, and “laying brick” with Chuckie. Unconvinced, Sean presses him further and what does he really want to do?
Will: “I wanna be a shepherd”
Sean, rising from his chair in exasperation, shows him out of his office.
Sean: “You know, if you’re gonna jerk off, why don’t you do it at home with a moist towel”
Angrily rising from his chair, Will calls Sean a “burnout” and although he believed them to be friends: “You’re chucking me?”. Will’s anger now turns to a spiteful conversation on Sean’s dead wife and his hiding away from the world in the aftermath…
Will: “She fucking dies and you just cash in your chips and walk away?”
Sean: “What do you want to do? You got a bullshit answer for everybody. I ask you a very simple question and you can’t give me a straight answer”
Sean shows Will the door again before retreating to his chair, sitting down, wiping his glasses and muttering “Shepherd” in exasperation, before “White little prick”.
Cue the oh so beautiful song “Angeles” by Elliott Smith as Will calls Skylar on a payphone. She tells him, through tear filled eyes, that she loves him and although he doesn’t respond, he beams a heartbreaking smile before hanging up. Skylar is now seen boarding her plane for California as she scans the airport in the hope of seeing Will. Meanwhile, he sits in a public park overlooking a nearby river as we cut to an aeroplane roaring in the sky overhead and now to Sean’s office and a frustrated Gerry talking to Sean (unheard) on the telephone as he cannot believe he, and indeed Will, aren’t here. Now we cut to Will and Chuckie on a building site before a cigarette break and a beer, and Will talking to his best friend of his dreams for the future, of working with Chuckie, raising their children together and taking them to little league baseball together. Clearly not sharing his friend’s vision for the future, Chuckie exclaims that if Will is still here in 20 years “I’ll fuckin’ kill ya. That’s not a threat, that’s a fact, I’ll fuckin’ kill ya”. Taken aback by his best friend’s outburst, Will begins to protest that he isn’t special and life owes him nothing, but Chuckie interjects with a cutting “No. No, no no no. Fuck you, you don’t owe it to yourself man, you owe it to me. Tomorrow I’m gonna wake up and I’ll be 50, and I’ll still be doin’ this shit”. Will’s sitting on a “winning lottery ticket” and he’s “too much of a pussy to cash it in” as Chuckie leaves his friend with a sobering parting shot: “You know what the best part of my day is? I turn up to your house, no goodbye, no see you later, no nothing. You just left”.
Scene 11
We cut to Gerry pacing angrily up and down Sean’s office talking of the “disaster” unfolding before their very eyes in regard to Will whilst Sean calmly sits in his chair. With tensions rising again between these supposed two old friends, it’s clear that Gerry is still chasing his unfulfilled dreams and living his life now through Will as Sean remains steadfast in his protection of the “boy”. Whilst Gerry can only see Will’s educational and mathematical excellence, Sean can only see the human beneath the fragile veneer as Gerry sneers at him as he talks of the two of them having a “rapport”, mostly he believes at his expense and of Will wasting his life getting drunk with the “gorillas” he sees as friends. Now pacing around his office and following his college friend, Sean tries to patiently explain to him that Will continually hides and places his trust in his friends as he’s been abandoned by everyone else in his entire life. “Why does he hang out with those retarded gorillas, as you call them?” Sean now angrily continues “Because any of them, if he asked them to, would take a fucking bat to your head”.
Collapsing onto Sean’s couch in exasperation, Gerry is lost in thought as Sean pontificates on the value Will regards above all else — loyalty, before continuing “He pushes people away before they have a chance to leave him” and furthermore “For 20 years he’s been alone because of that” and he warns Gerry that if he continually pushes him it’ll happen again, and he won’t allow it. Amid a furious and angry exchange, Gerry now accuses Sean of infecting Will with a fear of failure before dredging up the wounds of their past surrounding his success and his winning of the Field’s Medal compared to Sean’s seeming lesser achievements. With Gerry accusing Sean of being angry at him for his career success, the camera pans to a figure framed in the frosted glass of Sean’s office door as he exclaims loudly “He’s a good kid! And I won’t see you fuck him up like you’re trying to fuck up me right now”. Screaming into each other’s faces, Will meekly enters Sean’s office and only has eyes for his friend and therapist as Gerry walks past him and out of Sean’s office.
Cutting to a close-up of Sean, stubborn tears refusing to fall from his eyes, he admits immediately “A lot of that shit goes back a long way between me and him” as Will notices the paper folder in Sean’s hands, “for the Judge’s evaluation” he explains, before Will deadpans a joke with a smile to lighten the atmosphere and “Oh hey, you’re not gonna fail me, are you?”. Sean returns his friend’s smile before Will, obviously knowing the contents of his file and the catalogue of historical mental and physical abuse he endured as a child, asks “Have you had any, uh, experience with that?”. Sean misreads the intention of his question at first as he explains that after 20 years in his job he’s seen it all, as we cut briefly to the horrors inside Will’s file. He now repeats his earlier question, and has Sean had any PERSONAL experience of the grotesque abuse inside his file?
Sean: “My father was an alcoholic. Mean fuckin’ drunk. He’d come home hammered, looking to whale on somebody. So I’d provoke him, so he wouldn’t go after my mother and little brother. Interesting nights were when he wore his rings”
Will: “He used to just put a belt, a stick, and a wrench on the table. Just say, “Choose”
Sean: “Well I gotta go with the belt there”
Will: “I used to go with the wrench”
Sean: “Why the wrench?”
Will: “Cause fuck him, that’s why”
Sean: “Your foster father?”
Will: “Yeah. So, uh, what is it, like, Will has an attachment disorder? Is it all that stuff? Fear of abandonment? Is that why I broke up with Skylar?”
Sean: “I didn’t know you had”
Will: “Yeah, I did”
Sean: “You wanna talk about it?”
Will: “No”
Sean: “Hey, Will? I don’t know a lot. You see this? All this shit? It’s not your fault”
Will dismisses Sean’s first confirmation that none of this, none of his past, was his fault with a shrug of the shoulders before Sean continues “Look at me son. It’s not your fault”. Walking a step at a time toward Will, Sean repeats “It’s not your fault” five more times, each one an unspoken tender reminder that he was a kid, an abused kid, in the care of horrible abusers and it wasn’t his fault. Close to tears, Will angrily shouts “Don’t fuck with me” before pushing Sean and “Don’t fuck with me Sean. Not you”. Sean repeats “It’s not your fault” twice more before Will dissolves into his arms, crying uncontrollably. The scene ends with a longer and wider shot of the two friends in each other’s arms as Sean whispers tenderly “Fuck them, OK?”
After a cut scene showing Will, and not Chuckie this time, attending an interview at McNeil’s, we cut to a wide shot of the two friends sitting in Sean’s office…
Scene 12
As Will explains that he’s taken the position offered him at McNeil’s, Sean is all smiles as he looks at the wall mounted clock and, for a final time, announces “Time’s Up”. Will now prepares to thank him but Sean interjects with a smile and a “You’re welcome, Will” before Will asks if it’s OK that they stay in touch. Passing the young man a piece of paper with his new college telephone number, Sean announces “Yeah, you know, I figured I’m just gonna put my money back on the table and see what kind of cards I get” before a touching “You do what’s in your heart, son. You’ll be fine” and after huge hugs and smiles “Good luck son” as Will leaves Sean’s office for a final time, a smile and a wave of the piece of paper with Sean’s number on it, before bounding up the stairs and away from his office.
We cut to Will’s local bar and after first meeting with Chuckie and the arrival of Billy and Morgan, the three amigos playfully drag the birthday boy out of the bar for his 21st birthday present and “the ugliest fucking car I’ve seen in my life!”
Scene 13
We see Sean packing in his office as Gerry arrives, looking contrite, standing in the doorway. Sean welcomes him in with a smile and sensing his friend is about to apologise, Sean beats him to it, before announcing that he’s going to write and travel, with India, China and Baltimore on his hit list and answering Gerry’s question of when he’ll be back, he says he has a flier for the Class of ’72 Reunion and knowing there’s a free bar, he’ll buy his old friend a drink! They both laugh awkwardly before Gerry suggests they get a drink now to which Sean eagerly agrees. Locking his office door, Sean announces “This one’s on me” as he shows his old friend yet another lottery ticket and “I got the winner right here, pal. Yes sir, this is the one”. As the old friends ascend the stairs leading away from Sean’s office they joke and jibe at each other over the mathematical impossibility of ever winning the lottery, two old friends, shooting the shit just like the old days…
Scene 14
We now cut to Sean dressed in his Boston Red Sox jacket as he packs at home. A change of camera angle now sees him packing through the window of his apartment (cut to Chuckie, Billy and Morgan driving to Will’s House) and now Will, arriving outside Sean’s apartment, exiting his car, and smiling as he places a note in his letterbox (cut to Chuckie, Billy and Morgan arriving at Will’s house, tooting the car horn) and Will again, looking up and smiling as he sees Sean packing through his apartment window. The grinding of the gears on his clapped out old car draws Sean’s attention and as he looks out of the window of his apartment (cut to Chuckie walking towards Will’s house before knocking on the front door) we return to Sean racing down the communal stairs of his apartment building and after opening the front door, plucks Will’s note from his letterbox.
We cut back to Chuckie still knocking on Will’s front door and with no answer, peers through the windows at his now empty apartment. His best friend has indeed left without saying goodbye and after a huge smile of satisfaction, cue the beginning of the hauntingly beautiful “Miss Misery” by Elliott Smith and if you’re not crying by now, you’ve a harder heart than mine as we return to Sean reading the childlike scrawl of Will’s note, and…
“Sean, if the Professor calls about that job, just tell him sorry, I had to go see about a girl — Will”
Cut to a smiling Sean and “Son of a bitch. He stole my line!”
Cut to Will travelling alone, the only car on a long highway to California, the closing credits, a continuation of “Miss Misery” and then, the beautiful “Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band.
Altogether now…
“Skyrockets in flight
Afternoon delight”
Ayyyyyyy, Afternoon delight
Ayyyyyyy, Afternoon delight”
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.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon
Love Good Will Hunting. A definite favourite!