Matt Damon and Ben Affleck go collectively like peanut butter and jelly. There’s by no means been a time when the duo have not been synonymous with each other, as they have been lifelong buddies which have carried their robust bond into the film enterprise, placing their friendship on the market for all of the world to see. The pair not too long ago reteamed for the upcoming Netflix crime thriller, The Rip, however lengthy earlier than that, their first profitable outing was a drama that got here out of nowhere to earn 9 Oscar nominations. Now, 28 years later, it is as soon as once more successful on streaming.
Premiering in 1997, Good Will Searching starred Damon and Affleck as a pair of working-class associates from South Boston who get pleasure from consuming and combating. Affleck’s character of Chuckie Sullivan is a building employee, whereas Damon’s Will Searching will get by as a janitor at MIT. The catch is that Will is a brilliant genius who is ready to resolve advanced mathematical equations that stump virtually everybody else. He hides that a part of himself, although, as his upbringing as a troubled youth appears a lot simpler to lean into. His mistrust of authority causes him to set boundaries for worry that he’ll be taken benefit of, which prevents anybody from ever attending to know his genuine self.
Enter Robin Williams’ character of Dr. Sean Maguire, a therapist who challenges Will at each flip with compassion and empathy. He quickly turns into the daddy determine that his affected person by no means had, breaking by his partitions to assist him notice that each one the abuse he suffered as a child wasn’t his fault. This permits Will to really feel a way of private freedom for the primary time in his life, which supplies him the motivation to discover sides of himself –and life – that he is stored beneath lock and key for years.
Directed by Gus Van Sant and in addition starring Stellan Skarsgård, Minnie Driver, Casey Affleck, and Yellowstone‘s Cole Hauser, Good Will Searching is an outstanding film about self-discovery, emotional therapeutic, and loyalty. It is onerous to consider that Damon and Affleck have been solely of their early-20s once they started work on the script, as their phrases and themes present maturity past their years. It is virtually as if the duo have been ignorant to their internal critics, who absolutely at instances made them query in the event that they have been on the fitting path, and as a substitute determined to plow by irrespective of the end result.
The outcomes paid off, as Good Will Searching received Williams the Oscar for Greatest Supporting Actor, and Affleck and Damon the award for Greatest Authentic Screenplay. To at the present time, the previous nonetheless holds the document for the youngest particular person to ever win in that class, as Affleck took dwelling the trophy when he was simply 25 (Damon was 27 on the time). Their win marked a turning level of their careers, and allowed them to interrupt by the glass ceiling in Hollywood. They’d take full benefit, as each would go onto turn out to be international superstars and finally kind their very own manufacturing firm, which is one other testomony to their robust friendship.
In the event you’ve by no means seen it, or maybe need to relive the greatness that’s Good Will Searching, the award-winning drama is at the moment streaming at no cost on Pluto TV, the place it at the moment sits at #9 on their record of Prime 10 films.