What Makes Will Hunting
So Good? A Film Analysis
Through the Lens of Class
 |
| Will Hunting takes a break from his janitorial duties to solve a problem no one else can solve |
Film Synopsis.
Good
Will Hunting (1997), by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, is about
a South Boston mathematical genius who is a broom-pusher at MIT. Will, an
orphan, grew up in foster homes and was physically abused as a child. He
solves math problems that Lambeau, a MIT professor, writes on a hallway
chalkboard. For the students at this prestigious university, these problems are
extremely difficult. For Will, they are easy. Will solves a
graduate level math problem that Lambeau has written on the board to challenge
his students. Lambeau is impressed, but when no one steps forward to
claim the work, he posts another problem, one that took him and his colleagues
two years to solve.
Professor Lambeau catches Will
writing the answer to this problem on the chalkboard, but he assumes that Will
is “graffiting” on “people’s work.” He shouts at Will to stop, and Will
leaves. Lambeau is astonished when he sees that Will was correctly solving this
problem and knows that he has found his mystery mathematician. When
Lambeau goes to the maintenance office, a comical scene ensues as the
Professors are visibly uncomfortable on the turf of these working class
men. Nonetheless, Lambeau gets the information he is after—Will’s name,
though he is told that Will has stopped showing up to work. Also, he
discovers that Will is on parole.
Meanwhile, Will and his friends,
Morgan O’Mally and Chuckie Sullivan, get revenge on Carmine Scarpaglia, a bully
who used to beat Will up in kindergarten. Will is arrested, and when
Lambeau tracks him down, he is in the process of defending himself. The
judge reveals Will’s lengthy criminal history and the fact that Will has
successfully defended himself in the past. This time, however, Will is
sentenced to jail time, especially since he resisted arrest and fought with the
police officer. Lambeau speaks with the judge, explaining Will’s gift,
and the judge agrees that Will can avoid jail if sees a counselor and works
with Lambeau on math. Will agrees, though he takes issue over having to
get therapy.
Will
goes through five psychologists rapidly, toying with each of them. Lambeau goes
to his old college “friend,” Sean MaGuire, who is teaching psychology at a
local community college. Sean, who is from Will’s neighborhood, agrees to work
with Will. A close relationship, though volatile at times, develops
between Sean and Will.
Will
meets Skylar, a Harvard student who will soon be going to med school at
Stanford. Skylar falls in love with Will and wants him to move with her, but
Will is too scarred to love and too scared to leave Boston, fearing that Skylar
would soon regret her decision to go “slumming,” leaving him alone in
California.
In
the end, Lambeau wants Will to get a job using his mathematical intelligence, a
desire his best friend, Chuckie, also has for Will. Will’s friends give him a
Chevy Nova for his 21st birthday. Sean gives Will the
courage to move on with his life. As the movie ends, Will ditches his new
white collar job to “See about a girl,” and he drives off into the sunset to
reconcile with Skylar.
Film Analysis.
Although this film garnered much critical acclaim, it
operates on the level of cliché, reproducing many stereotypes regarding social
class in America. The working class is represented by Will and his
buddies and Sean, all of whom are of Irish descent. In the opening shot
of the film, Will’s trashy house is shown with junk all over the yard and
peeling paint. He and his friends are riding around in a beater
car. This is immediately contrasted with an immense college class room,
equipped with the fanciest blackboards I’ve ever seen. Will is a janitor,
alluding to the fact that servitude is the only way a member of the working
class could find himself inside the hallowed halls of an Ivy League school.
Because
race (black/white) is ostensibly not an issue, the spotlight is indeed fully
focused on class differences. However, it is Irish Americans that are
othered through their presentation as lower class, in contrast to the white
upper crust. The Irish-American is presented as loud, boisterous, and
prone to drink, as is illustrated by Sean, who drinks alone in his house as he
mourns the death of his long-time wife, lost to cancer. Will and his
buddies are rarely shown without a drink—typically bottled, domestic beer, in
contrast to the champagne that the upper, educated class is shown drinking at
the MIT class reunion that includes Lambeau (pictured). This scene, in
which Lambeau and the others are on MIT’s prestigious campus with perfectly
pressed suits, a uniform of belonging, participating in the age-old tradition
of singing their alma mater, is directly contrasted with the working class
traditions of attending a rowdy baseball game, eating hot dogs, and drinking
beer. In the next scene, also pictured, slow motion and close-ups are used
to portray the animalistic side of the working class as they seemingly
senselessly fight.
In
the bar, Will and his friends speak to working class girls, who, as Bettie
notes in Women Without Class (2003), are typically identified by their
tight clothes, crass language, and smoking. When compared to Skylar, the upper
class coed Will meets at the “Harvard Bar,” differences are apparent. She
and her friend are dressed in preppy clothing and speak quietly, not overtly
flaunting themselves. This portrayal of binary oppositions further stereotypes
and dehumanizes the working class, emphasizing the “natural” differences in
class between the two groups: acceptable versus unacceptable, civilized
versus uncivilized.
When
the professors end up in the office of the maintenance men, these differences
continue to be highlighted. However, in this scene, it is the professors
who are othered. The incongruity is painfully apparent as the professors
stand in the doorway, afraid to fully enter the room. The men are hostile
to the professors as Lambeau makes the faux pas of assuming that they will
automatically know what “his” building is when he asks for the name of the
student who works there. The reply is that no student works for
them. This scene works to reproduce the class structure in a way that
keeps people in their places because this scene works on the assumption that
“real men” perform manual labor and aren’t prissy, learned people. On the
surface, such a scene empowers the working class. However, this attitude
towards education functions to keep the working class (boys especially) from
taking advantage of education as a way out. Hollywood empowers this
attitude towards book learning, and it is the upper class who has the last
laugh.
In
the bar scene where Will meets Skylar, this theme is furthered. Both
groups feel a certain superiority over the other. Chuckie approaches
Skylar, pretending to be a college kid to impress her and pick her up.
Clark, a ponytailed blonde from M.I.T., calls Chuckie out for pretending to be
a college student and sets out to humiliate him. Will leaps to his
friend’s defense, demonstrating his superior intellect as he reduces Clark to a
poser with plagiarized opinions. Will says that only two things are
certain in this life, one of them being that he has spent”$150,000 on an
education you could have gotten at the public library for $1.50.” Clark
retorts that Will will still be serving him and his family. This exchange shows
that Will (and by proxy, the working class) feels that many of the upper class,
educated people read about other people’s opinions and pass them off as their
own, and that no matter the money spent on their educations, they are still
sorry human beings with no compassion for others and no true intelligence.
Clark represents the opinions of the upper class in regards to the working
class—no matter how smart one is, one is still a member of the class he is born
into, effectively negating the idea of the bootstrap theory.
This
film highlights a predominant facet of the American Dream: the bootstrap
theory, a theory of individualism that holds the individual accountable for
taking advantage of opportunities to improve their lives and careers on the
basis of their own merits (Alexander, Bozick, & Entwisle, 2008). Good
Will Hunting is a feel-good film because we are sold the lie that no matter
your lot in life, elbow grease fueled by desire, talent, and motivation will
get you where you want to go. Will, though a petty criminal living in
squalid South Boston, can choose to escape the fate of a hard living working
class life. However, to the film’s credit, it is obvious that no matter
one’s genius, mentors, or opportunities, escaping is a difficult feat, as is
highlighted by the inner demons that plague Will, keeping him tethered to
self-destructive behaviors such as pushing people away who try to help him.
Class
differences are also present in academe, as is shown through the tensions that
exist between Lambeau and Sean. Immediately, it is made apparent that not
much love is lost between these old college roommates, both whom graduated from
M.I.T. Lambeau is now an esteemed professor at his alma mater, while Sean
is portrayed as a washed-up psychology professor at a local community
college. Lambeau looks down on him for what he perceives as Sean’s lack
of success and drive, accusing Sean of resenting him for being a Field’s
Medalist. However, Sean feels that Lambeau is pompous. Sean is contrasted
to Lambeau throughout the film, and it is Sean who is able to break through
Will’s tough façade. Sean is “real” with Will, cussing and breaking down
rather than posturing and putting on airs. He tells body jokes,
reminiscing about his wife farting in her sleep, perpetuating the perception
that the lower class has a crass sense of humor. It is Sean who wakes
Will up to the binary that he has placed himself on the wrong side of:
experience versus knowledge. He points out that Will has knowledge and is
a “cocky, scared shitless boy” in comparison to people with experience, such as
himself, who is an “Intelligent, confident man.” This scene is where Will
realizes that book knowledge isn’t enough—life experiences matter, too, and he
gains a respect for Sean, who has both experience and knowledge.
The
most poignant scenes of class difference occur between Skylar and Will. Will is
passing class when he is with her, and he makes a point of keeping her separate
from the rest of his life. When she finally forces the issue, refusing
him sex until she gets to meet his friends, Will agrees—opening him up to a
sexist remark, “Men are shameless. If you're not thinking with your wiener,
then you're acting directly on its behalf”. Skylar is
different from what Will and his friends expect her to be like: at the
bar, she tells a crude joke, proving that she can fit in with his rough and
tumble friends. Nevertheless, the evening ends in disaster as Will
reveals how he feels about the relationship: “….You just want to have your
little fling with, like, the guy from the other side of town and then you’re
going to go off to Stanford; you’re going to marry some rich prick who your
parents will approve of and just sit around with the other trustfund babies and
talk about how you went slumming too once!” His monologue reveals both
his fears and how such cross-class relationships are often viewed in our
society. He does not feel good enough for her, and he can’t believe that
Skylar truly loves him.
Skylar’s
response is of the poor-little-rich-girl variety, “What is your obsession with
this money? My father died when I was thirteen, and I inherited this
money. You know, every day I wake up and I wished I could give it
back. I would give it back in a second if it meant I could have one more
day with him. But I can’t and that’s my life and I deal with it. So
don’t put your shit on me when you’re the one that’s afraid.”
This
scene devolves into the clichéd when Will reveals that he was an abused orphan
and then reacts in violence, pushing her against the wall, banging her head
against the door, and cussing and yelling at her. Again, Will is
portrayed as a barely-controlled beast, playing on the working-class domestic
violence stereotype.
In
the end of the film, we see Lambeau’s sense of entitlement. He is the
typical white savior, swooping in to save the day as he has done with
Will. He has given Will a second chance in life, and he tells Will, “You
should show me some appreciation.” Will has already complained about
feeling like he has “a sign on my back that says ‘Save me,’” and in the end, he
bucks against the upper class system that has been imposed upon him—tossing up
money and opportunity for love. On the face of things, this choice is
romantic, and it highlights a perceived difference between the classes—the idea
that relationships are important to the working class while the upper class is
fueled by material desires. In actuality, this ending reproduces culture,
applauding illogical decisions that keep people from achieving upward
mobility—the American Dream. Foster (2005) derides this Hollywood
practice of promoting “…poor decision-making based on sentiment rather than
rational problem solving” and notes that films such as Cheaper by the Dozen
(Shawn Levy, 2003) are examples of people “…being indoctrinated into making
stupid financial decisions” (p. 17). The viewer is left feeling that Will
has made the correct decision, although he has perhaps thrown away his future.
What
makes Will good? Does the title refer to the idea that Will is good
because he refuses to capitalize on talents that come comically easily to
him? Is he Good Will Hunting because he is loyal to his friends?
Because he is shown good will by the Professor and Sean? Because he is
shown good will by his friends who scrape together money to buy him a
car? Because he is a “good” boy and does what he is told—fulfilling the
terms of his release from jail?
Despite
its failures, primarily that of naturalizing the class differences, this
film does bring conversations about class to the forefront, as is seen when Sean
finally confronts Lambeau regarding his condescending attitude and when Chuckie
explains to Will that he hopes he comes to Will's house one day to find him
gone because Will is the one who has the smarts to get out and make
good. However, this film does illustrate how difficult upward mobility
is.
Bibliography
Alexander, Bozick &
Entwisle (2008). Warming up, cooling out,
or holding steady: Persistence and change in educational expectations after
high school.
Bettie, J. (2003) Women without class: Girls, race, and
identity. Berkely, CA: University of California Press.
Foster,
G. A. (2005). Class-passing: Social mobility and film in popular culture.
Carbondale, IL: Southern University Press