The Genius of Good Will Hunting

Ben and Matt

In advance of the 20th anniversary, I am posting a critique of the Matt Damon, Ben Affleck breakout film, Good Will Hunting. I saw the movie in the theaters back in 1997 when Bill Clinton was president and beanie babies were all the rage. Rotten Tomatoes rates the film at 97% from critics. Now a lot of movies that one sees in their youth have a different feel when viewed later after you have gone through decades of events that life tosses your way. You grow, you mature, you embrace life on the journey to your first colonoscopy. When I was younger, I thought Good Will Hunting was terrible. I recently watched it again, and I can say, now that I am a more introspective person, a husband, a father, that the film stinks even more than ever.



Will Hunting is a super smart, lost boy who aspires to be a janitor at MIT. In the opening scenes, he's speed reading a book. Initially, I thought he was leafing through a magazine that was uninteresting to him, maybe the current issue of Janitor Monthly. Later we learn that Will can recall any page in any of the thousands of books he has lining his shelves because he's way smart. Now, I know there are people who have what is called a superior autobiographical memory which allows them to recall just about anything that ever happened to them. This concept might not have been floating around in 1997, but Will has the added ability to understand all these technical topics as well as recall everything he has previously read. He's wicked smart.

The Hollywood version of genius is always that of the consummate slacker, the guy who doesn't have to study, but can ace any test. The myth of intrinsic intelligence is revered while the more realistic notion of committed study is dismissed as commonplace. According to Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers, a book chronicling the factors that lead to extraordinary achievement, it takes 10,000 hours of hard work to enter the stratosphere in any field. Real genius takes a lot of tenacity, and it's this dedication that marks true brilliance.

In the film, Will explains his super smarts to his girlfriend Skylar, played by Minnie Driver, by comparing himself to Mozart. He says that Mozart could just play the piano because it made sense to him, and it's like that for him with organic chemistry. Problem is Mozart practiced his ass off at a very young age. His father was a composer and teacher. True, Mozart had a natural gift for music, but it was this gift that drove him to work hard, carrying him to extraordinary levels. His father wasn't breaking his cassinettes to practice.

Will Hunting is a natural at mathematics and organic chemistry. The issue I take with this is that no one is born with math nor organic chemistry prewired. Worse yet, Skylar, a premed student, laments about how she hates organic chem. I hope she became a dermatologist because I wouldn't want someone like her cutting into me. A few personal friends of mine are medical doctors, and they all enjoyed organic chemistry. That's why they're doctors.

Will even offers to do Skylar's homework for her like he could just jump in mid semester and bang out her college level organic chemistry problems in between buffing floors and freeing up clogged toilets. Being a janitor, he probably had plenty of free time on his hands so I'm sure he spent it perusing college level text books. Now to be fair, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck farted out this script as freshman, Damon at Harvard and Affleck at the University of Vermont. They never graduated so it's doubtful how absurd this concept was to them.

Will had been solving some tough math problems left on a whiteboard in the hallway by Professor Lambeau, the scarf and ascot wearing math teacher who occasionally tries to use his number two pencil on young female students. When Lambeau and his grad student, Tom, discover the janitor scribbling the solution to a difficult problem on the board, Lambeau confronts him. Will avoids the pair by dropping an f-bomb and scurrying away, disappearing in the bowels of the building like a phantom janitor.

Will runs into some cavone on the basketball court who tormented him in kindergarten. Talk about holding a grudge. He beats the guy so badly that when the dude comes to his cannolis are stale. I didn't grow up in Southie, but where I came from if some Irish scrapper broke an Italian's face, he would have woke up the next day spooning with a horse head. The cops show up, and Will scuffles with the boys in blue. You can tell this movie is 1997 because today if you tussle with the police, they are highly likely to put a few caps in your gut, then turn in their guns for two weeks of relaxing desk work.

Lambeau pulls some strings so Will avoids jail time if he sees a shrink. Queue the late Robin Williams as Sean, a community college psychology teacher who lost his wife to the big C. Sean and Will don't hit it off. In an early exchange they just stare at each other. This battle of wills was especially inept for the viewing audience who also just gets to stare at them staring at each other. When I saw this scene for the first time in the theatre, I didn't know it was coming otherwise I would have hit up the candy counter for more rasinettes. Eventually, Will begins to open up telling Sean that he's an "orphan," a bit of a dated word if you ask me. I kept waiting for Oliver Twist to round the corner and ask for more porridge. Will also had a dick for a foster father who gave him the choice of being beaten with a wrench, a stick or a belt. Will chose the wrench just to show him he was unafraid. Apparently, social services was not exactly monitoring the situation too closely if a foster parent was using tools on their charge.

Lambeau and Will start mathing it up together. In one scene they are impressively cancelling terms at breakneck genius speed. They slap down low in celebration as both admire the equations on the board. Lambeau weirdly puts his arm around Will, then begins rubbing his head in a way that would have made me very uncomfortable. I thought Will wanted to stay out of prison to avoid that kind of thing. Tom, Lambeau’s graduate student, apparently takes umbrage to the growing mutual affection. What tanks this scene is that the math is ninth grade polynomials which I'm sure was fresh in the minds of first year college students. If you want some impressive math at the MIT level, you have to roll out something more difficult than algebra.

The bar scene is when Will mixes it up with a student over an article they both read. The dude says,

"You’ll be serving my kids fries in a drive through on our way to a skiing trip." Will retorts, "That may be, but least I won’t be unoriginal."

This is a perfect example of what is called "stilted dialog," a common screenwriting criticism. When has anyone in any circle used "unoriginal" in a riposte? Additionally, I never understood the issue here. Damon and Affleck think reading, comprehending and quoting some obscure article on global economics is not real intelligence? Most people form their opinions from watching YouTube. Reading a white paper and absorbing the tenets is an integral part of research since you have to do a peer review when you publish a paper. The cap to this scene is when Will gets the girl’s math and says,

"Do you like apples?"

The guy says, “Yeah.”

Will retorts, "Well, I got her numba. How do you like those apples?"

If I said that around my buds back in the day, they would have collectively beat my ass just for being so lame. If I was that dude, I would have replied,

“That’s good because you’re gonna need apples, a salt lick and a feedbag."

The big breakthrough in therapy comes when Sean repeatedly tells Will,

"It’s not your fault.”

Will gives his best "Don't fock with me” then, eventually breaks down and sheds some tears because in Hollywood all psychological problems are solved with a good cry. Sean, being the great psychoanalyst at the local community college, hugs it out with Will. Afterwards, all is good. Problem solved. Who knew mental illness was so easily resolved? 

Affleck's big scene is when he somehow arranges a meeting with the employees of a tech company that Will is supposed to interview with. He extorts $200 out of these guys which they have to pay if they want to interview Will. I worked many years in the computer science field, and it's doubtful these mid-level managers, talking to Affleck, could get a company to pony up $200 to interview a janitor even if he used Lambeau as a reference.

In one scene, Lambeau asks grad student Tom to make everyone a cup of coffee. Four years of college in a tough subject like math, soldiering thru the GMAT, coming up with original research and Tom gets to make coffee for the janitor. Will at one point dismantles one of Lambeau's colleagues with a killer math proof, and Tom comforts the guy by saying that he’s a smart man and that some people just get lucky. The guy leaves as the door closes quietly behind him. Will has a smirk on his face clearly rubbing it in. Tom should have said,

"Say Will, when you finish up with that cup of joe, some frat boys blew cookies in the men's room."

Will sets fire to a proof that he casually whipped out. He drops it to the floor as he says,

"You're right, this is probably a total waste of my time."

Ironically, that's what I thought while sitting in the theatre. Lambeau pathetically jumps to the floor and puts out the fire, saving the precious math proof. In reality, the sprinkler system would have gone off causing millions of dollars of damage to the MIT math lab. Will would have got canned then spent the rest of his life a filthy homeless dude wandering the streets of Boston yelling at himself.

Harvey Weinstein, cofounder of Miramax, promoted Good Will Hunting with an aggressive "oscar campaign." The film went on to win an oscar for best original screenplay as well as best supporting actor for Robin Williams, his only oscar. Ninety-four percent of the users on Rotten Tomatoes liked the flick. Most of my friends and colleagues who did crappy in college love this film. It's as though the movie gives all the goof offs an escape from the simple fact that they partied too much and studied too little. It's not surprising that a lot of people liked this film because the way the math works out, most people are average, and as such only two percent of the population are true geniuses.

I'm sure they are in the six percent that didn't like Good Will Hunting.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on September 27, 2016.

Hollywood Power Couples Got It All

Hollywood power couples are celebrated at award shows for looking stunning on the red carpet. There are countless articles written about what wonderful parents they are, how they keep their relationships fresh, their latest vacations, their cool houses, and endless musings concerning their philosophies on child rearing.

Exceedingly White Gwen Stefani

Everything is great, being them. They look good, they got plenty of money, they're important, they wear trendy sunglasses, people want to hear what they have to say, they adopt kids from war torn poverty stricken countries, they get to do it in the Lincoln bedroom, and the paparazzi follow their every move. It's great being them up until the point that they announce on Twitter that they're getting a divorce.

A-maizing Blake Shelton

There's been a rash of Hollywood power couples consciously uncoupling lately. They announce that after X years of marriage they have mutually decided to raise their children as single parents, but they still care about each other, and move forward with respect and affection. Then they ask for privacy for the sake of the children "during this difficult time." A few days later, TMZ reports that the guy screwed the babysitter.

Gavin Munster

I was happy for Gwen Stefani when she hooked up with corn fed Blake Shelton. Gavin Rossdale always looked like an adult version of Eddy Munster to me. Blake is the salt of the earth kind of guy. I'm not sure why Blake and his wife divorced, but since there were no kids, it probably had to do with "difficult schedules." Either way, it's nice to see Gwen with Blake even though it greatly increases her chances of being involved in a gun accident.

Facially Challenged
Marc Anthony

I think Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony were a physical mismatch. In an interview JLo said in regards to the attractiveness of her exs,

"I'm not a looks person. I don't know if you noticed over the years."

Even Marc Anthony's father told him he was ugly. If they keep it up Marc is going to climb under a rock and sing Spanish songs to himself. JLo has bucked her butt ugly trend with baseballer, Alex Rodrigues, who was considered one of the game's all time best players before he tested positive for enough Five Hour Energy for Dick Cheney to place in the Boston Marathon. Let's face it. We all know that Marc Anthony was a rebound from Ben Affleck.

TV Actress Jennifer Garner

Now, Jennifer Garner is an actress that one can guarantee if she's on the project, the movie will gross less than a Dairy Queen in winter. I think the big fight in the Affleck household was who was the worse actor. Ben was certain it was Jen in The Odd Life of Timothy Green. Jen would say just one word,

"Gigli."

Then the babysitter struck again ruining another Hollywood marriage.

Angelina Jolie probably made sure the childcare specialist was pretty dumpy so her husband, Brad Pitt, wouldn't hit it. That's what Maria Shiver did, but it didn't work. Pitt is being smeared by Jolie's public relations team with all these reports of Russian prostitutes and drug use. I always imagined he was a nice guy. They make it sound like a few lines of coke and two beers, and Pitt would do up a bullet hole.

Brangelina at the Premier
of their Divorce

His friend, George Clooney, said when he heard of the pending divorce,

"I didn’t know that. Wow."

Jennifer Anniston certainly knew it was coming. Brad likes to practice lines late at night with his leading ladies. Apparently they do lines, but not from the script. I guess Mrs. Smith finally got her comeuppance. They issued a "what's best for the kids" statement after Brad did what was best for little Brad.

Amal and George Discussing
Syrian Refugees at
an AARP Convention

Clooney was at the UN with his barrister wife, Amal, when he got the news. She's 17 years his junior. The press said it was so cute that he held her hand all day at a UN round table with CEOs and President Obama. Truth is Clooney figures he's next, and he was more like hanging on for dear life. Being an international human rights lawyer, Amal will likely take Clooney for everything but his cemetery plot when she divorces him.

I think it's a tad hypocritical when a cheating celebrity spouse releases through a publicist that they are concerned for their family, or that they intend to co-parent, or they still mutually respect each other. It's a good thing Hollywood is so liberal. I think Angela Jolie would have shot Brad in the pit if she had a gun.

The Most Interesting Man
in the World, Kevin Bacon

Now, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick are on year 31 of their marriage. Kevin hasn't stopped his upwards trajectory since Footloose. He proves the secret to a happy, fulfilling marriage is being a good dancer because that’s all women really want. The rest of us men who will eventually need the services of a divorce lawyer, dance only because women like it. We do that pathetic shuffle, devoid of any actual dance moves, which looks more like an epileptic seizure than moving to the music. Kevin Bacon doesn't dance just for his wife. He needs to dance. He dances with himself in abandoned factories, and he's way cool while he does it.

Johnny "Digit" Depp

If Johnny Depp took a few dance lessons from Kevin Bacon, he wouldn't be in the mess he's in right now with Amber Heard. Depp is 23 years older than Heard which means when he was her age, Amber was skipping to school with a lunch box. Initially, the two parted amicably in 2017 after they got busted for smuggling dogs into Australia. Amber took the wrap for the couple by admitting to falsifying quarantine documents for the pair's two toy pooches. Back in 2009, Amber got into a fight with her then girlfriend, Tasya van Ree, at the Seattle Tacoma Airport. She was arrested and booked on a domestic violence charge after allegedly grabbing and smacking her girlfriend in the arm. In December of 2018, Amber wrote an article for the Washington Post chronicling the abuse she endured in relationships over the years.

Depp claims in a lawsuit that when they were married, Amber took a shit in their bed in retaliation for being late to her thirtieth birthday bash. Amber blamed it on the dogs although Depp submitted through his lawyer that the size of the turd made that impossible. Depp also stated that Amber beaned him with a glass bottle, cutting his finger. Apparently, Depp accused his wife of playing hide the sling blade with Billy Bob Thornton who she filmed a movie with so he lopped off the tip of his finger then scrawled in blood on a mirror "Starring Billy Bob" and "Easy Amber."

I tend to embrace Amber's version of the whole thing because Depp has just too many tattoos for me to believe him. I know that's not right of me to tat shame, but my generation associates body ink with drug use. I'll likely change my mind if it turns out that Amber did, in fact, dump a deuce in their bed. 

Catherine and Michael
Returning from a Couples Colonoscopy

Michael Douglas is two and a half decades older than his wife, Catherine Zeta Jones. She looked like she was going to jump ship when she went through some mental health issues. It all started when Michael in an interview indicated that the decades of chain smoking was not the cause of his throat cancer. He said,

"Without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV, which actually comes about from cunnilingus."

That's pretty specific for me, Mike. He must have been busy as a beaver if he got throat cancer from that.

Leatherman Spokesperson,
Larry King

Larry King is a generation older than his eighth wife, Shawn Southwick who looks like a foot taller than him. They've been married for 22 years. It's rumored that she cheated on her 85 year old husband. If he divorces her, there's still time for nine and ten. At his age, he's pretty dependent on his wife. I read she ties his shoes for him. I would have to double down on some Viagra if my wife tied my shoes for me.

Most Hollywood power couples end up fizzling out like a cheap candle. They got money, power and fame, but they can't make it work. What's missing?

Oh yeah. Love.

Editor's Note: Larry King blindsided his wife with divorce papers on August 20th, and Angela Jolie, who filed for divorce from Brad Pitt, is still pissed at him three years later. Originally posted on October 11, 2016.