The film is about Will Hunting (Matt Damon), a young man from South Boston who has had a rough life and has been in trouble with the law since childhood. The one thing he seems to have going for him is three loyal friends and a job as a janitor at MIT. His job leads to a professor's discovery of Will's brilliant, genius mind. The same professor gets Will out of legal trouble on the condition that he meet with Professor Lambeau and a psychiatrist twice a week. The 'shrink' ends up becoming Will's friend and guide as he chooses what to make of his future. Throw in a love interest for Will, and the story is complete.
This film tells a powerful story of how Will faces his past and deals with the questions that determine his future. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, and Robin Williams (who won an Academy Award for his supporting role as the psychiatrist, Sean) tell this poignant story.
Lambeau: Is it my imagination, or has my class grown considerably? I look around and see young people who are my students, young people who are not my students, as well as some of my colleagues. And by no stretch of my imagination do I think you've all come to hear me lecture.
Will: Yah, Bobby Champa. He used to beat the [crap] outta me in kindergarten.
Billy: He's a pretty big kid.
Will: Yah, he's the same size now as he was in kindergarten.
Chuckie: So this is a Harvard bar, huh? I thought there'd be equations and [stuff] on the walls.
Will: The sad thing is, in about 50 years you might start doin' some thinkin' on your own and by then you'll realize there are only two certainties in life.
Clark: Yeah? What're those?
Will: One, don't do that. Two-you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you coulda' picked up for a dollar-fifty in late charges at the public library.
Skylar: You suck.
Will: What?
Skylar: I've been sitting over there for forty-five minutes waiting for you to come talk to me. But I'm just tired now, and I have to go home, and I wasn't going to keep sitting there waiting for you.
