Good Will Hunting Movie Review
Everyone raved about this feel-good date movie in 1997. If you couldn't get into Titanic, you saw Good Will Hunting instead. Matt (Will Hunting) Damon and Ben (Chuckie) Affleck got their very own magazines (just like Leonardo DiCaprio!) with HUNDREDS of color photographs and hardly any words to read. They won an Oscar for best original screenplay, Robin (Sean McGuire) Williams won an Oscar as best supporting actor, and nominee Minnie (Skylar) Driver, Damon's former girlfriend, showed up at the Academy Awards ceremony dressed to the nines and ALONE. Good Will Hunting shows how the adorable, messed-up title character learns to accept his great genius with the help of his messed-up therapist. Chuckie is Will's best friend and Skylar would like to be his girlfriend. After 126 minutes, all burning questions and issues are answered and resolved, all the couples in all the movie theatres on the planet depart happily and proceed to affirm life in their own respective ways and magazine publishers scramble to find more pictures of Damon and Affleck for their next iconographic issue. (NO ONE put Ben Affleck in the fan rags after he played Bully O'Bannion in 1993's Dazed and Confused.) Clearly, yours truly resisted Good Will Hunting, but it deserves at least 2 1/2 bones for being well acted, well directed, and well produced.
1997 (R) 126m/C Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Stellan Skarsgard, Minnie Driver, Casey Affleck, Cole Hauser; D: Gus Van Sant; W: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck; C: Jean-Yves Escoffier; M: Danny Elfman. Academy Awards ‘97: Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Williams); Golden Globe Awards ‘98: Best Screenplay; Screen Actors Guild Award ‘97: Best Supporting Actor (Williams); Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards ‘97: Breakthrough Performance (Damon), Best Original Screenplay; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘97: Best Actor (Damon), Best Director (Van Sant), Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Song ("Miss Misery”), Best Supporting Actress (Driver), Best Original Score; Directors Guild of America Awards ‘97: Best Director (Van Sant); Golden Globe Awards ‘98: Best Actor—Drama (Damon), Best Film—Drama, Best Supporting Actor (Williams); MTV Movie Awards ‘98: Best Film, Best Male Performance (Damon), Best On-Screen Duo (Matt Damon/Ben Affleck), Best Kiss (Matt Damon/Minnie Driver); Screen Actors Guild Award ‘97: Best Actor (Damon), Best Supporting Actress (Driver), Cast; Writers Guild of America ‘97: Best Original Screenplay. VHS, LV, Closed Caption, DVD