Damon Does Dazzling Star Turn in Boston-Based 'Good Will Hunting'

If you were writing a screenplay, would you write yourself as the lead? Even more, would you write yourself as a God--dreamy, confident, charming and brilliant? Matt Damon certainly has written himself the part of a lifetime in Good Will Hunting. And boy, does he jump on the opportunity--his stellar performance is nothing short of a giant leap into stardom.

Damon writes himself as the studly Will Hunting, a cocky roughneck from South Boston. Will knows he's a looker--he spends his days swaggering around town, drinking and palling around with buddies and getting into fights for no other reason than boredom. Is it a surprise then to find out that Will is also a secret genius? He quotes ancient property laws to get out of arraignments, rattles off knowledge of historiography in order to impress girls and even finishes brain-numbing equations left on the school blackboards.

But Damon couldn't just walk around for two hours flashing smiles and acting cool. So he writes himself into a showcase drama where he not only gets to horse around with gorgeous Minnie Driver, but also challenges the acting chops of some man named Robin Williams.

Williams plays Sean McGuire, a therapist hired by Lambeau, an MIT professor (Skarsgard), to help Will after he is arrested for getting in a brawl. Sean is instructed to tone down the rebellious Will, and make him accept a place in the world of corporate mathematicians. Things get complicated when Sean's hopes for Will to choose his own destiny conflict with Lambeau's ambitious goals (while Will watches gleefully as people fight over him). Will dismisses Lambeau and initially tries to hold out on McGuire. And though he embarks on a relationship with Skylar (Minnie Driver), a beautiful, wealthy Harvard student, Will can't open up to her; he doesn't want anyone to know he's still the same terrified orphan he was as a kid.

Oh yes, Will is sensitive too. He can't help being perfect, but deep inside he's a poor abused soul. In any other movie, we would hate Will Hunting. His perfection would be nothing short of violently irritating--and lethally boring. And yet, Damon avoids the pitfall of being one-dimensional. Instead, he keeps shedding layer upon layer of complexity during the film until finally we reach the core of his character near the end. It's almost as if he knows Will is all an act, a mask for something much deeper and thankfully less heroic.

The rest of the cast rises to meet Damon's challenge. Williams is a wonder here--he clearly has invested immense passion in his role as Sean McGuire. His interactions with Will are wonderfully entertaining--each of them is lightning quick, perceiving what the other is about to say before it comes flying out of his mouth. Ben Affleck, who cowrote the screenplay, has a small but important part here as Will's main buddy (He swears that in the next movie they write he'll get to play the Romeo). Affleck has the funniest lines in the movie and one particular scene in which he impersonates Will in a job interview is classically entertaining.

And then there is the luminous Driver who is shaping up to be one of the best young actresses today. Her role is underwritten, but she simply elevates herself above the script. She glows onscreen with charisma, and her sly British accent makes her banter with Will all the more entertaining. You have to wonder what Driver would do with a better-written part.

The film is nothing particularly exceptional, certainly not what you would expect from quirky indie fave Gus Van Sant. Van Sant goes for a straight-up telling of the tale with little to distract you from the heart-stuffed fable playing out on screen. After two hours, the film collapses miserably in the last 15 seconds--indeed, it is the first time in his career that Van Sant has stuck with a happy ending, and it dilutes the rest of the film's impact. Instead of a powerful character study, we're left to ponder a sudden dive into mainstream cheesiness.

The screenplay itself is wonderfully idiosyncratic. Despite the heavy-handed title (you can hear the studio execs screaming "Do you get it?") and the ridiculous ending, the dialogue is smart, often hysterical and loaded with spectacular monologues. But this is a Matt Damon movie from first to last, and it is his performance that makes the film a success.

It's going to be awfully tough for Damon to follow up a performance as faultless Will Hunting. But maybe this is how he planned it. He's made his mark and leaped into the beaming spotlight. Maybe next time he'll let someone else join him.