Good Will Hunting - Plot

Plot

20-year-old Will Hunting (Matt Damon) of South Boston has a genius-level intellect but chooses to work as a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and spend his free time with his friends Chuckie Sullivan (Ben Affleck), Billy McBride (Cole Hauser) and Morgan O'Mally (Casey Affleck). When Fields Medal-winning combinatorialist Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård) posts a difficult problem taken from algebraic graph theory as a challenge for his graduate students to solve, Will solves the problem quickly but anonymously. Lambeau posts a much more difficult problem and chances upon Will solving it, but Will flees. Will meets Skylar (Minnie Driver), a British student about to graduate from Harvard University and pursue a graduate degree at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

Will is faced with incarceration after assaulting a man who had bullied him as a child. Lambeau arranges for Will to forgo jail time if he agrees to study mathematics under Lambeau's supervision and to see a therapist. Will agrees, but treats his first few therapists with contempt and they refuse to work with him. In desperation, Lambeau calls on Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), his estranged college roommate who also grew up in South Boston and now teaches psychology at Bunker Hill Community College. Unlike the other therapists, Sean pushes back at Will and overcomes his defense mechanisms, and after a few unproductive sessions Will begins to open up.

Will is particularly struck by Sean's story of how he met his wife by giving up his ticket to the historic sixth game of the 1975 World Series after falling in love at first sight. Sean doesn't regret his decision, nor does he regret the final years of his marriage when his wife was dying of cancer. This encourages Will to build a relationship with Skylar, though he lies to her about his past and is reluctant to introduce her to his friends or show her his run-down neighborhood. Will also challenges Sean to take an objective look at his own life, since Sean has been unable to move on from his wife's death.

Will begins to chafe under Lambeau's high expectations and makes a mockery of job interviews that Lambeau arranges for him. Sean cautions Lambeau against pushing the boy too hard. Will walks in on a heated argument between the two over his future and it greatly upsets him. When Skylar asks Will to move to California with her, he panics and pushes her away, revealing that he is an orphan and that his foster father physically abused him. Skylar tells Will that she loves him, but he denies loving her and then leaves her. He next storms out on Lambeau, dismissing the mathematical research he has been doing. Sean points out that Will is so adept at anticipating future failure in his interpersonal relationships that he deliberately sabotages them in order to avoid the risk of emotional pain. When Will refuses to give an honest reply about what he wants to do with his life, Sean shows him the door. Will tells Chuckie he wants to be a laborer for the rest of his life; Chuckie responds that it would be an insult to his friends for Will to waste his potential, and that his fondest wish is that Will should leave to pursue something greater. Will decides to accept one of the job offers arranged by Lambeau.

At another therapy session, Sean and Will share that they were both victims of child abuse, and Sean helps Will to accept that the abuse he suffered wasn't his fault. Having helped Will overcome his problems, Sean reconciles with Lambeau and decides to take a sabbatical to travel the world. When Will's friends present him with a rebuilt Chevrolet Nova for his 21st birthday, he decides to pass on his lucrative job offers and drive to California to reunite with Skylar.