Good Will Hunting is the kind of film that Hollywood likes to make and that makes it feel proud. Paradoxically, it is also the kind of “good-feeling film” that puzzles many critics and analysts for its reliance on improbability. It is likely that the film's improbability is the reason that few initially wanted to make it and yet, when made, it found an immediate audience. This is both the stuff of Hollywood legend and the stuff of Will Hunting.

This film is the skillfully told, fast-paced fable of an abused and brooding aggressive Southie (south Boston Irish) who has a photographic memory and a world-class flair for advanced mathematics. While working as ajanitor at MIT he anonymously solves an unsolvable mathematical problem on a blackboard in a hall, is placed on therapeutic parole after an unprovoked attack on a public school rival, and finds a mentor who helps him find a therapist; then he finds a premed girlfriend