Andrew Worsdale: Movie of the week
If Barry Levinson had got hold of the script for Good Will Hunting he would have turned it into another Rain Man – mawkish, sentimental and filled with the kind of Hollywood gloss that makes a potentially touching story just seem unreal. So it’s a credit to producer Lawrence Bender that he chose Gus van Sant, previously known for his low-budget “queer” movies like My Own Private Idaho, and his brilliant debut film Mala Noche.
Armed with a heartfelt and humorous script by two of the film’s co-stars, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Van Sant has made a film that has warmth as well as an edge you don’t find in similarly themed big-budget movies.
The narrative revolves around Damon as a night janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who likes hanging out with his buddies and getting drunk but can also digest encyclopaedic knowledge in a single sitting. He has a photographic memory and can solve intricate mathematical problems that baffle the Nobel Prize-winning academics. When he gets arrested for assault and faces prison he is rescued by maths professor Lambeau (played by Breaking the Waves’ Stellan Skarsgard) who in turn asks an ex-college friend and psychologist Sean McGuire (Robin Williams) to help out with therapy.
Along the way the troubled genius falls in love with British Harvard student Skylark (Minnie Driver) and by the end of the movie has got rid of his old, self-defensive, bullying soul and takes control of his own life.
It’s a movie about a genius, no idiot savant, who can grow, and change, if he wants to. The outcome of the movie is fairly predictable, but along the way we are treated to an amalgam of exquisite character studies. Damon is excellent in the lead – a Leonardo DiCaprio or River Phoenix lookalike – still twinky but a bit buffed out. He’s a complete natural. Williams -in what could have been a star cameo – gives a soulful, rich performance, never resorting to mugging or cuteness. And Driver is simply irresistible. All three deserve Oscar nominations.
Jean Yves Escoffier’s cinematography and Danny Elfman’s score (both are expert craftsmen who’ve been known to show off in the past) are held back by Van Sant’s desire to tell a touching tale with zero shtick. The movie has a low-key pastoral score and the camera work never seems forced or contrived.
Van Sant and co-writers Affleck and Damon, who were boyhood friends, keep this oddball choice of characters alive. In one scene, after another director would have cut, Van Sant keeps the camera running and the result is one of the most stunning dramatic revelations in cinema for years.
Van Sant has perfect pitch for dialogue and at times gives in to his campy satirical touch, but he keeps firm control and provides a perfectly paced drama.
Despite a disappointing finale, Van Sant, his writers and actors deliver a well- constructed piece. Here’s hoping they scoop the Oscars aheadof industry heavyweights like James (Titanic) Cameron.