thomas4cinema

I have no idea why I had never seen this truly excellent film before, the classic that it has become, but here we are: at last I had the chance to watch a very good movie with a very good Robin Williams, Stellan Skarsgård, Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck and with a decent lead set of Matt Damon and Minnie Driver. There is only one scene where Robin does the Williams, which is a good thing, and there are many scenes where the melancholy of growing up in a not too exciting place on the US East coast plays stage center. This is what the film is about: high hopes, faded dreams, and the fear of change. All the characters know about it, but only the least educated one (played by Ben Affleck) understands it, and this becomes his film close towards the end when he gets a speech to open the eyes of the hitherto ignorant and self-indulgent, obnoxious Matt Damon character. It is one of these interesting cases where you have a character at the center of a film who cannot be loved, as he is arrogant and selfish and ignorant to a painful degree. Yet you are inclined to suffer and sympathise, because he is the only one with a hope of change in all this. In a curious genius of script writing, this completely sad and desperate setting makes a light-hearted, often funny and always agreeable movie, without losing sight of the stakes at hand and the slings and arrows to be suffered. Again: Excellent movie!

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/good_will_hunting