Happy Hump Day, everyone! (No movie recommendation tie-in for this one, sorry.)
I’m sure there’s a good joke to be made here (maybe involving Ben Affleck dating Ana de Armas in quarantine), but I’m admittedly too tired to think of it right now…
It’s launch day for HBO Max, which you likely have access to if you already pay for HBO in some fashion! (Vulture has a very helpful breakdown of the various platforms the channel now offers and whether or not you have access to it.) I’m anxiously awaiting some kind of backlog with the cable provider to get resolved so I can dig in, particularly to their impressive back catalogue of older movies.
But in the meantime, I’ve been busy watching some of the originals headed directly to HBO Max! For The Playlist, I’ve reviewed intersectional #MeToo documentary On the Record (which is absolutely worth your time) and the Anna Kendrick-starring rom-com series Love Life (which ultimately is not, try as she might to elevate the material).
I know that between Amy Cooper and George Floyd, many of us are in another situation where we’re forced to stare into the dark heart of racism in America once again. (I had to correct myself from using the first-person plural “we” because some people do not have the luxury of being able to ignore it given its material effects in their own lives.) Far be it from me to tell you how to handle your response to this tragedy, but if we learned one thing from 2016 … your tweets (and, now, Instagram Stories) are not enough. Or, at the very least, you can make a much bigger impact and break the cycle by not just reacting but by acting. The conversation you can have with someone to address the many ways white supremacy lurks casually underneath the placid surfaces of American society will do more than your post. If you’re ready to start doing the work, I highly recommend checking out this very helpful and comprehensive list of resources to be an anti-racist. (It’s not just dry academic text — there are movies, podcasts and other forms of education!)
Today’s action item might only apply to a handful of you, but if you are (or know) a recent graduate, Gowns 4 Good is collecting graduation gowns to “upcycle” as PPE for healthcare workers!
Now, what you came for…
DAY 76: Good Will Hunting (available on Hulu until 5/31*)
*It’s also on HBO Max (ha) and Showtime Anytime presumably into June and beyond
Nothing like an impending platform expiration date to force you into a rewatch of a movie you’d been putting off for years! It had probably been at least a decade since I first saw Good Will Hunting, and I’m as guilty as anyone for underestimating its power. The project that made Oscar-winners out of twentysomething screenwriters Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (their praise for Harvey Weinstein notwithstanding, I still love watching their acceptance speech) serves more as a punchline than a movie movie these days. It’s often flattened in the cultural memory as little more than the Seth Meyers’ parody trailer “Boston Accent: The Movie.” But the film stands as more than the cultural footprint it left behind.
Good Will Hunting is a deeply emotionally wrought drama about men confronting their trauma and vulnerability (a sight that’s still far too rare in the movies). It’s easy for the memory to fade given all the toughness and bravado of Damon and Affleck’s later action roles, but they are both sincere and raw in their sentimentality in their showcase film. Only Damon cries, but you can feel both of their hearts poured into the fabric of the movie. It crackles with the energy of their youthful, uncynical view of life, love and humanity.
Even as some of the plot mechanics of Good Will Hunting felt a little “screenwriting 101” on further inspection, I still got swept up in the titular janitor/genius sorting through his emotional baggage all the same. Roughness and refinement battle for Will Hunting’s soul, pushing him one way and then pulling him back. After fighting a bully in a gang, Will teeters on the verge of serving time … only to be saved by MIT Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård), who caught him just prior solving a math problem in the hallway that none of his graduate students could crack. Lambeau cuts a deal that allows Will to study with him and avoid going to jail so long as he also agrees to undergo therapy.
I think we’re at the point in the culture where we underrate Matt Damon as an actor (largely because his public persona has been getting in the way the past few years), and this film deserves to be the star-making vehicle that it became for him. Few people could pull off the balancing act of being both so precocious and so prickly … and yet have us in his corner the entire time. Damon bottles up that Southie spirit, showing how its spirit of loyalty empowers him and its code of masculinity ensnares him.
If we didn’t believe Will had such elaborate defense mechanisms erected to protect him from being further wounded, it wouldn’t be so touching to watch his therapist Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) break them down with his own radical honesty and transparency. By the time Good Will Hunting arrives at the now-famous “it’s not your fault” scene, a line that might play as totally clichéd in a lesser movie feels totally earned. We see Will challenged by Sean’s wisdom and introspection and witness them do the hard work of sorting through hopes and fears for past and future alike. As it turns out, moviemaking is a lot like life: there are no shortcuts to arrive at emotional enlightenment that do not involve arduous self-reckoning.
Be good to yourselves and to each other,
Marshall