Good Will Hunting

A lovely, touching film about a naive, broken genius who heals from trauma with the help of the only therapist that's unafraid of calling his smart-ass remarks for what they are: ways to hide his brokenness. Will is undeniably a prodigy, but the abuse he faced as a child from a foster father has warped his thinking, leading him to be afraid of ever stepping out into something new because he can see everything that could go wrong. Gerald initially seems like the right person for him, until we see that the professor's true hopes are self-centered and driven by an inferiority complex towards Will. Sean is ultimately the only one who takes it upon himself to help, and it's only he and Skylar that can see that Will is fundamentally afraid of things going wrong, afraid of being pushed away, just as he was with his foster father, and so he pushes both people and opportunities away before there's a chance of him getting hurt. He would rather settle for things that are easy for him, because then he can see what's coming. At first, I thought Chuckie was enabling him and being a bad friend, but all it took was those words he told Will to show us that his friends truly want the best for him: “you’re my best friend so don’t take this the wrong way, but in 20 years, if you’re still living here […] I’ll fing kill ya.* Such a heartwarming film, and I genuinely think a lot more people need to watch this film, because it'll change the way we view people and their behaviours. How many people do we know that always have a smart-ass answer for everything, that are always engaging in self-destructive behaviuors? Let's not push them away - let's try to be more like Sean, taking our time with them, being gentle with them, encouraging them, and allowing them to heal. And that goes for ourselves too. Also I cannot remember the last time I watched an American film where the only British person was actually nice, what do they have against us 😭