Right off the bat, the opening scene at the bar just doesn't live up to what ended up on the screen. The images of words and numbers blurring together set the tone. That's Will's world, "flipping through a book at about a page per second." In contrast, the closing image of Will driving to California is the perfect companion to the opening, showing us the change. As Sean points out earlier, the people who truly challenge him -- philosophers, dramatists, poets, mathematicians, etc -- are all dead. He's moving on with his life, searching for intimacy.

Greatest script I ever read. It kidnapped me from the instant it put that cat out of misery. Great dialogue! Great Themeline! I mostly enjoyed how this movie pooled drama, romance, action, and comedy… something that parallels real life. This combination made Will’s ordinary world exist alongside the New world he was forced to be part of. It helped keep Will’s inner struggle a mystery lurking in the depths of the Charles River, reflecting some images from his past until it revealed the brick tied to his ankle. He isn’t stuck in a situation: being chases (action), or being head over heels in love with a girl (romance)... He’s got everything going on in his life: the fun, the troubles, the friends, the lover... all; but something is missing. His past is haunting him, his talent is scratching his head, he has questions and he needs answers. Maybe that’s why he works as a janitor at MIT. Maybe that’s why he reads all those books (he surely isn’t the reading type). Maybe that’s why he regurgitates excerpts to look like he has the answers, thus deceiving himself before deceiving others. This is what Sean extracts from their first meeting: the thin line between knowledge (info, facts, figures) and understanding (perception, compassion, appreciation), the thing that unfurls the path of Will’s good-will hunting. I enjoyed the movie as well. That opening scene is a great set-up for the climax and resolution. The acting enthralls you. Chapeau bas! I would very much like to read the thriller version. Does anyone know if it exists in Cyberia?

I'd forgotten what a great film this is until I read the script. Compelling hero who you really root for, a clear change you want him to undertake, fantastic supporting characters and a script that conjures up the two very different worlds Will is torn between and makes them both fresh and fascinating. What interests me is that it gives the impression of having a hero who doesn't want anything, or at least won't take acton to get it - he's accepting counselling and doing math to avoid jail, he resists really engaging with either his talent or his problems for as long as possible - and yet it works. I guess it works because of two things: one, we sense that he does want something, even if he's not sure what it is (a life he can be happy with?), and two, *we* can see so clearly what would make him happy that we will him to get out there and get it. Clever writing!

Evidently William Goldman was responsible for advising Damon & Affleck that Will had to head off to California at the end of the story. And it's completely understandable. Will is strapped to his past. As painful as it was to be an orphan, then foster child, as crappy as it was to have an abusive foster father, that is the 'devil' he knows. Sean knows that Will needs to break that chain to the past in order to have any opportunity to have an authentic life. The fact Will is a genius puts that tension into stark relief. And yet as Will tells Chuckie, he envisions himself being in the same neighborhood 20 years from now. He tries to work with Chuckie. He tries to go on living the same drudgery life with his friends. But two things happen: (1) He meets Skylar. (2) He meets Sean. Skylar opens up the possibility of him having an authentic relationship with a lover (Attractor). Sean presses Will to break with his past, chains that would keep Will from embracing the possibilities of the present and future (including Skylar). Sean also knows that the only way Will can gain mastery over the emotional pull of his past is to confront the shadow Will thinks he's running away from with his smart-ass, tough guy mask: His experiences as an abused child. "It wasn't your fault." A child will assume responsibility for beatings because that they can understand. What they can't understand is the random chaos of an adult wailing on them without provocation. So underneath everything else going on with Will is the shadow of his abused past... and a concomitant emotional layer of guilt. Sean helps Will to have a cathartic experience -- "It wasn't your fault" -- which opens the door to the possibility of Will being able to break with his past... and sends him on his way to California. And that's why I think Goldman was right with his advice about the ending.

And, in an earlier draft, Will and Skylar left together until Terrence Malick suggested that Skylar leaves first and then Will goes after her.

Anna, I'm glad you enjoyed the script. And your comments put a spotlight on one (of many) themes in this movie: knowledge vs. Knowledge. We can lump all of Will's book learning, all of his genius for numbers, math, all of it under small "k" knowledge. It's interesting. It's surprising. It's intriguing. But as Sean points out, there is a difference between what will [k]nows and what he doesn't [K]now. Under big "K" knowledge, we can put what I guess we could call affairs of the heart. Will runs away from his interior life, attempts to distract himself from memories, feelings, his genius with library books, carousing with his buddies, getting into fights, breaking the law, and so forth. He does everything he can to avoid any genuine interaction with other people and especially any genuine engagement with his Self. What Sean realizes (and of course he's a Mentor figure) is that Will will never get to [K]knowledge of love, friendship, connections, and all the other affairs of the heart until he confronts the other [K]nowledge: his painful past, his guilt. If we step back and take a real meta view of the story -- from a writer's perspective -- it's interesting to ask why Will has his genius. Sure, we can say it's because of his DNA. But again from a writer's perspective, why does his character have the abilities he does as a genius? I think a plausible explanation is that he developed his genius as a coping skill and defense mechanism to survive growing up in an abusive household. It's like all the psychic energy generated during those many times he was beaten was directed toward cleaving his brain cells into genius mode. Why? Because he would need his genius to survive: * To enable him to immerse himself in another world of ideas, concepts, theories, etc * To give him the smarts to put people on the defensive so he could never be taken advantage of again * To harness his anger and redirect it into learning everything he could about this screwed up world... maybe he could find some answers for the unanswerable question: Why did that bastard, his foster father, beat him? This would explain why Will has a push-pull relationship with his genius. It totally is his ticket out of his past life, but he refuses at every turn to approach it like that. Rather he sees the genius as being an innate part of who he was and who he is, all of that tied to the beatings as a child. And yet, he secretly solves the math problems at MIT. Thus we know there is a part of him that wants to break free. He just won't admit that consciously. In fact, he can't... until Sean helps him to see the way. Re the thriller version of the script: I have never seen a draft. It's long enough ago, it's possible there isn't an electronic copy of it anywhere.

Debbie, you raise a really interesting point. What are those fundamental questions writers are trained to ask: * Who is the Protagonist? * What do they want? * Who's keeping them from it? With GWH, as you point out, what Will wants (conscious goal) is not clear at all. We can say Skylar, but I would be more inclined to put that as an unstated goal (or need). He tries every way he can to avoid being with her. Yes, we know he needs her, but he never acts or even states that he wants her. So then we can say, "He wants closure" or "He wants peace." First to me, those are goals, they are too amorphous. I can say, "I want world peace," but that has no real meaning. Besides -- again -- everything Will is about is avoiding that which would lead to closure or peace: confronting his shadow [abusive childhood] and his infantile guilt surrounding it. So what does he want? Honestly I don't think he's got a bloody clue what he wants. He knows multiple things he does not want, but what he wants? Maybe he wants to kick the hell out of his foster father. Maybe that's why he gets into fights, projecting his hostility toward his foster father onto other people like he does with Bobby (P. 11 description of Will as he beats the guy: SAVAGE, UGLY, VICIOUS, VIOLENT). But the fact is he can not beat the holy hell out of his foster father. Nor would that undo the damage that has been done to him. So I'm left with this: Will only knows what he wants at the very end of the movie, when after he's had his cathartic experience with Sean -- "It's not your fault" -- and is 'absolved' of his guilt surrounding his experiences as an abused child, that his Need emerges into the light of day. And for the first time, Will says, "You know what? That's what I want. I want what I need. And that's Skylar." Hence a first step toward Unity. But the fact Will goes through 112 out of 114 pages going through the story without a clear compelling want / goal, that goes against one of the most fundamental principles of screenwriting. It also helps to explain in part the structure of the story which feels pretty random to me. Not random in terms of logic, events makes sense, that's not an issue. Rather there isn't this strong, narrative drive. Normally that would be an issue. But I didn't have one problem with it in this script and here are the reasons why: * I care about these characters, especially Will and Sean. * I find Will's situation compelling, the combination of genius mind in a blue collar body. * The inherent tension between Will's genius and Will's tormented persona, and all those masks he wears, fascinated me and I maintained curiosity throughout to see how things would turn out. * The subculture of south Boston interested me. * The subplots -- Will and his buddies, Will and Skylar, Will and Lambreau, Will and Sean, Will and his genius, Sean and Lambreau, Skylar and Will's buddies [great scene between she and Chuckie], Chuckie and his buddies, Chuckie and Will -- were all compelling and entertaining. But fundamentally I think the thing that kept me completely plugged into this story: its honesty. The dialogue is terrific, really well written. But it is the honesty of the characters, time and time again, that continually blew me away. Even when Will was being dishonest with himself which he did over and over again, that was an honest reflection of his character doing his best to run away from his past and that tortured part of his self. It amazes me that two young guys like Damon & Affleck could nail the characters the way they did, find their core essence, and somehow delve into that through action and dialogue in such a way that was entertaining, compelling, and honest.

Great catch, Teddy. That whole blog post from Tom Shone with quotes from Matt Damon is great. I'll definitely include that in one of this week's posts with a HT to you. Had no idea with these script reads we'd get all this inside dope about script development. It's extra groovy!

This is a note to me to remember to discuss this as one of the story's themes: Beauty and the Beast. And yes, that relates to Will and Skylar. But there's another way it works, too. If I forget to discuss on Thursday, I'd appreciate if someone here would remind me. Thanks.

I really found that I got a lot more out of the script than the movie. Maybe I focused on the dialog more and where each character was coming from and what they wanted. You get their fears, their hopes and their dreams. You not only have the battle of Will with himself you have the battle between both of the men trying to help him that are in a way using him to fill the holes in their lives. But we all have those holes and we can fill them by helping each other. I also like the fact that probably the person that loves him the most has the least selfish feelings and is happy to know that Will has moved on.

I have to say I found a lot more to appreciate by reading the script than I did the first time I saw the movie. Sean's goal, to get Will to understand the importance of vulnerability and connection, is strong and is the shock his character needs. And the Southie boys are wonderfully drawn. But both Will and the establishment's response to him still feel contrived and tax my suspension of disbelief. When I saw the movie, I thought Will's choice at the end was simply the wrong one -- American men always light out for the West, it's been done many times and much better. (Huck Finn's the original; Clockers is a great modern example.) Reading the script now, I understood better how and why he had to choose a sentimental education over further intellectual development; instead of a wrong choice, it just felt like a false one. (What, there's no one to talk about math with at Stanford?)

Mike, that is some excellent insight: * Lambreau and Sean both 'use' Will for their needs. Lambreau cloaks his need in flighty talk about the math community, Einstein and the rest, but he's given away when he talks to corporate recruiters with "we're still weighing options," obviously his ego connected to what transpires with Will. So using the Catholic lingo, I'd say Lambreau's is a sin of commission. Sean, on the other hand, I don't think is as conscious of what he's got going on in his involvement with Will. Yes, he has to be aware of the identification he has with Will -- both from urban Boston, both talented young men with troubled pasts, both with abusive father figures. But it does feel like he is honestly trying to help and protect Will [especially the beginning of that pivotal scene on P. 99-102]. So if Sean is 'guilty' of using Will for his own means, I look at that as a sin of omission. * Your point about Chuckie is spot on. Of ALL the characters in the story, even Skylar, the only one who isn't projecting a need of their own onto Will that would directly benefit them is Chuckie. In gaining what he hope he'll gain -- Will leaving town -- he loses his best friend. But perhaps in the end, what he gets is a confirmation of his own hope that he can change, he can get the hell out of Dodge (read: South Boston). I don't think that's the case because here he is BMOC, so more likely his desire really is a selfless one. He KNOWS how unusual Will is, how significant Will's gift is, at least significant enough to deserve to be anywhere but South Boston. That whole bit of business about Chuckie hoping one day he'll show up and Will won't be there is I think three beats, two visual, one in dialogue. But it's one of the most satisfying thematic dynamics in the script.

Here's how I see it. Will wants to be part of his group of buddies and anything he does outside of that group or to change that dynamic makes him feel less loyal, less safe. His goal is to keep the status quo and be part of a group of friends that treat him as their equal and has mutual respect for each other. He wants to belong. That seems like a pretty strong goal to me. Now, everybody around him knows that he is special and thus thinks he should change. However, the only thing Will needs is to confront his past abuse in order to be able to open up to Skylar. Sean helps him overcome his childhood trauma, but that doesn't directly cause him to want to do something with his life or even realize that he should. It does make him emotionally available so he can accept Skylar into his life. It is Chuckie who makes Will understand that he is special and that he must do something with his life. To me their conversation (on page 98 in the script) has always been the key. "You owe it to me." "It'd be a fuckin' insult to us if you're still here in twenty years." Will is not gonna do anything to please anyone, not Lambeau, not Sean, not even Skylar. But he will listen to his closest friend. The others do play a role in Will's transformation, but Chuckie is ultimately the biggest Impact Character that makes Will realize that he needs to change. Will's metamorphosis is acceptance of himself and his past trauma, the ability to open up emotionally to accept love in his life, and the realization that he is an individual that can survive without his group.

I remember all the talk that there was no way these two pretty boys could have written this script themselves, and it must have been "actually" written by Goldman. I think Gone Baby Gone put an end to most of that speculation. The thing that struck me on this reading of the script was the fact that Will is really an asshole. I mean, he's obnoxious and violent and cocky - and could easily have been an unlikable character. It is impressive that we end up caring so much about him. (Also, I thought the cat joke at the beginning is like a screenwriter's in-joke. "Save the Cat" indeed!)

Laura, that's a really good point. Let's pick up on that subject -- Will's likability vs sympathy factor -- when we discuss characters on Wednesday.

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