It's fair to say that Good Will Hunting's protagonist has a deep-seated dissatisfaction with his life. He might like to think that he's totally fulfilled by his life of drinking and fighting. But if that were the case, he wouldn't spend his evenings reading about economics and solving insanely complicated math problems in the hallways of MIT.
There's a big part of him that wants to turn his gift loose on the world. He holds himself back, though, because he prefers to live in a world that never challenges him or asks him to be vulnerable. It's only when he starts seeing Sean Maguire for therapy that he starts to get at some of the inner problems that are feeding his sense of dissatisfaction.
Questions about Dissatisfaction
- What do you think is the biggest cause of Will's dissatisfaction? Why?
- Why does Will spend his time working manual jobs instead of going to work in some think tank?
- How does Sean Maguire help Will confront some of the problems that are keeping him dissatisfied? When do these efforts reach a climax, and why?
Chew on This
In Good Will Hunting, we learn that sometimes, we're not even aware of how much we're holding ourselves back in life.
Good Will Hunting shows us that most dissatisfaction comes from knowing that we could be making better use of our lives.