Good Will Hunting
Short description
Good Will Hunting centers on a young man from working-class South Boston whose extraordinary mathematical ability goes unnoticed while he drifts through casual jobs and brushes with the law. After one confrontation too many lands him in trouble, a professor who has recognized his talent intervenes, arranging for his release on the condition that he attend therapy. The psychologist he is sent to proves difficult to reach and slow to trust, and their sessions gradually become the ground on which Will confronts his past and the choice between the life he knows and the future his intelligence could open.
Gus Van Sant directed the film, the fourth of the eighteen features he has made in chronological order, following To Die For and preceding Psycho. Matt Damon plays Will, with Robin Williams as the therapist Sean Maguire, Ben Affleck as his friend Chuckie Sullivan, Stellan Skarsgård as Professor Gerald Lambeau, Minnie Driver as Skylar and Casey Affleck as Morgan O'Mally. Damon and Ben Affleck wrote the screenplay, and Lawrence Bender produced.
Made for about 10 million dollars, the film returned roughly 226 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 8.4 out of 10 from around 1.2 million votes, and on TMDB 8.2 out of 10 from more than 14,000 votes. A critics' rating of 8.3 out of 10 from 89 reviews places it close to both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- This is how Matt Damon and Ben Affleck scouted for a film company: they inserted an erotic scene involving Will and Chuck on page 60 of the script, a scene that was clearly out of place, and began pitching the script to major studios. None of those they spoke to at these studios even mentioned the scene. Only Harvey Weinstein from Miramax mentioned it and asked what it was doing there, being completely out of place. Damon and Affleck explained that they were using it to determine which studios had actually read the script and which hadn't.
- In his fifth year at Harvard, Matt Damon studied dramaturgy. One of the assignments was to write a one-act play; it was this play that, with the help of Ben Affleck, subsequently turned into this film.
- A significant portion of Casey's lines were improvised. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and director Gus Van Sant later admitted that these lines were much funnier than the ones they had prepared for Casey.
- In the scene with Robin Williams (1951-2014) and Matt Damon on a park bench, it seems as if there is no one else nearby. However, Williams was a hugely popular actor, and at one point, over 3,000 people were watching the filming.
- The painting that can be seen in Robin Williams's office was painted by Gus Van Sant.
- Following Robin Williams' death in 2014, the bench where he conversed with Matt Damon's character in the film became a place of pilgrimage; people left flowers and other tributes there.
- At the very beginning of the film, Professor Lambeau writes on a chalkboard and lowers it; several shots later, the chalkboard is raised, and then in a close-up we see it lowered again.
- On the construction site, when Will and Chuckie are talking, at the end of the conversation Chuckie is holding a beer in his right hand, and in the next shot in his left.
- Robin Williams' last line in the film ("Good Will Hunting" - he also stole my line) was improvised.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
