In his initial meeting with Maguire, Will makes several comments about the therapist’s deceased wife, wrongly assuming that she’d left him.
One of the film’s most memorable scenes takes place on an unassuming bench in the Boston Public Garden, the country’s first public botanical garden. The most mundane, everyday locations evoked a powerful sense of place.
This is the beauty – and the genius – of Good Will Hunting’s scenery: Boston got to speak for itself. But when Grafft took director Gus Van Sant through South Boston to scout locations, Van Sant was immediately drawn to several local spots, including the L Street Tavern – and no sound stage in Toronto could do them justice. “You could really tell Boston locals wrote it.”įilming in Massachusetts in the 1990s, before officials began offering film-credit incentives, was both challenging and expensive. “Good Will Hunting had one of the top three scripts I’ve ever read,” said Tim Grafft, the head of locations for the Massachusetts Film Office. And the city is still home to characters like those in the film – from bohemian students and Harvard professors to young fans clad head-to-toe in Boston sports apparel. Boston is a city of neighbourhoods, each with a distinct personality and proud residents.
The 1997 film resonated with audiences worldwide and is still beloved, thanks in part to its filming location. But after yet another brush with the law, Will is released into the custody of the professor that found him, and soon sits down with therapist Sean Maguire (played by Robin Williams). Working as a night janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Will’s discovered while solving nearly impossible equations on classroom chalkboards.
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Written by two friends from Cambridge (then-unknowns Ben Affleck and Matt Damon), the movie tells the coming-of-age story of a troubled teen from Southie (Will, played by Damon), who possesses a rare mathematical genius.