5 minute read
GOOD WILL HUNTING
by On Dit
A film that got me through
some tough times Words by Lakeisha Watkins
I still vividly remember the yellow and golden hues of the film and how I felt akin to the character Will Hunting. I was thirteen years old, the perfect age for me to watch Good Will Hunting. A time when life was turbulent and bleak (yes, I know everyone says the same about their teenage years). My mum scolded me for snickering when Will made a comment about Sean McGuire’s wife. I was a rude kid...
I know I’m not Will. He’s a fictional character written by two actors who went on to Hollywood stardom. I’m a real person who wouldn’t dare to do most of the harmful things that Will did. Yet as a kid I saw some similarities between myself and the silver-tongued character. We both came from a poor socioeconomic background. We also had abandonment issues and a similar habit of pushing people away. Like Will, people wanted me to make the most of my abilities, even when I was reluctant to. I’m no genius like Matt Damon’s character though. Give me a math problem and I’ll erase it.
There are other things you need to know about me. I struggled with a learning disability as a kid. A teacher once remarked “I always thought there was something wrong with you,” when I was ten. She’d probably have a heart attack if she knew I just finished my bachelors degree. I was also bullied often. Whether it was my big forehead or my acne. It’s not too bad though, Doja Cat’s line “can’t call me stupid with this big ol’ fucking forehead motherfucker,” is now very relevant. Other things I’ve dealt with include family violence, having anger issues as a teen and struggling to know my self-worth.
When I was eighteen, I wrote an essay comparing Good Will Hunting with the book The Maze Runner for an English class. It was an important year for me. I was graduating from high school, a pretty big accomplishment considering I was previously convinced I’d drop out. Things were great, my grades were high, I’d applied for university, I’d bought a car and I was making good savings from my part-time job. I’d made peace with a lot of my personal struggles too.
As the ending credits played, I watched Will drive along the winding road with tears in my eyes. I wanted to improve my own life. Media can have a powerful impact on people. It also might have inspired my taste in fashion—more specifically, my love for jackets from the 90s. Funnily enough, despite the vast difference in genre, Good Will Hunting and The Maze Runner share some similarities. The desire to triumph against dire circumstances. The value of friendship. And the power of the human spirit.
Every time I’d make progress with life, I was filled with a burning desire to watch the film. I was convinced that it would fill a part of me that was missing.
When I was 15, I signed up to play ice hockey for a program that helped to keep disengaged high school students in school. This marked a huge turning point in my life. Funnily enough, being there was like sitting with Sean McGuire for a therapy session. I cried on that ice rink, and I laughed on it too. My skin was blanketed with dozens of bruises from the hits and falls. In four years, I grew from a scared teen to a confident adult. The coaches and staff supported me. They also challenged me. I am the person I am today because of it. The first time I stepped on the rink I fell in love with the sport. I think of the people I came to know there as family and still drop in from time to time to see them. Aside from regularly freezing me to numbness, ice hockey also froze over my hot-headed ways.
Sitting on the school bus with our hockey bags loaded on the back seats was like Will and his friends in Chuckie’s car. We’d have endless banter and the occasional squabble with one another. But we’d stick up for each other when needed. We’d all work in unison to convince the teacher to take us to Hungry Jacks. It was mostly met with a no and a trip back to school. I see pieces of the film in the small moments of my life.
Yet now emptiness consumes me when I watch the film’s end. It has lost the golden glow that captivated me all those years ago. Will got the girl. The opportunities. Someone to challenge him. I too got some of those things for some time. It was blissful and made me love life. At eighteen there was a spark of hope in my mind. The world was in my hands, and I was going to have a positive impact on it.
Yet now here I sit at twenty-one, the same age as Will by the films end without that spark. Good Will Hunting ended when things were looking up for Will. My life continued on long after the good times, leaving me to watch helplessly as the things I once had drifted away. But hey, life’s full of ups and downs...
If the film played out for longer then maybe Will’s life would do a 180 and set him back to where he started. Maybe he wouldn’t get Skylar, his car might break down on his way
to her. Maybe he’d go back to messing around with his friends and jumping from job to job, racking up criminal convictions.
I know that Will and I aren’t that similar. People say it’s stupid to compare yourself to others, especially fictional characters. But sometimes comparison is a much-needed coping strategy.
Though Good Will Hunting may not invoke the feelings it once did, I will always cherish it. It inspired me to do my best to improve my life.
