Review of Education Related Movie

Value of Teaching

Good Will Hunting (1997)

 

              “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library.” - Will Hunting, a janitor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has an extraordinary ability in mathematics. One day Professor Gerald Lambeau gives his students difficult problems that seem nobody could solve. By answering this problem faster than anybody else, Will is found as an unidentified genius and his rare ability attracts the celebrated professor Lambeau. Since Will has been prosecuted because of repeated assaulting, the Professor decides to take charge of Will, to make him work as a member of the advanced mathematic team, and also to let him take therapy sessions from Dr. Sean Maguire. Sean tries to shine a light into Will’s closed mind and helps him how to deal with his gift and his future.

              In this story Will has a special skill but he refuses to use it in his career. As for him it is very natural thing to know how to solve the problem by just go through it once. He hates those smart people who show off their knowledge they get from books and don’t speak their own words. From this point we can see that educational background is not equal to one’s real ability. Even if he is raised in poor environment or has hardly any formal schooling, he lives his own life.

              “He pushes people away before they get a chance to leave him. It's a defense mechanism.” - The reason Sean has a chance to get to Will’s heart is because both of them have the same unfortunate early background (child abuse). Will’s withdrawn nature is the result of his home environment. Sean, as a teacher for his way of life, points out that Will has a certain philosophy. He doesn’t allow anybody to ruin it because it always has to be perfect, and that way he can go through his entire life without ever having to really know anybody.

              Through once-a-week meetings, Sean has never given up for Will and at their last one, finally Will has courage to see himself as he is. He starts to live more in touch with reality and Will and Sean are already beyond the patient-doctor relationship. We learned that teacher could be the one who changes the whole world of his student. Sean, as a therapist and a teacher, always has a resolute will to confront with Will himself and his painful past. This movie shoots us a considerable question at us – What is the teaching? What humans live for?

Van Sant, Gus, dir. Good Will Hunting. Prod. Lawrence Bender. 1997. DVD.