Communication in Film
Good Will Hunting
Understanding communication strategies between people can be learned by carefully observing feature films. Dramas are the best because the characters are involved in different types of relationships. Good Will Hunting directed by Gus Van Sant is a movie centered on a young man named Will Hunting who lives in South Boston. Will does not really ‘communicate’ per se with anyone even though he hangs out with a group of friends who are his surrogate brothers. Will is an orphan and has had a difficult life. Because he has had a difficult past he built a lot of defensive walls. He must learn how to let down his defenses as well as empathize with others in order to reach success in life.
Interpersonal Communications
Communication is the way we get to know ourselves and how we understand other people. At least we try to understand people from both their verbal and non-verbal cues. Good listeners are good observers too; both of those personality traits help gain successful interpersonal communications. The sender and the receiver may have a specific intent or reason to communicate; on the other hand they may be sending a message subconsciously. It might be love, loneliness, despair; anger, hope or thousands of other feeling messages. In a person’s daily life interpersonal communications are usually dyadic which means that more often than not it takes place between two people. Communication is at its best when the people talking can empathize with each other. As a relationship between two people develops the communication is interactive and they have dynamic exchanges as they get to know each other. As relationships progress and change, communication gives information on whether the sender (or receiver) is trustworthy or not, or whether they are someone that you want to get to know better. The environment conversations take place in gives contextual meaning to the communications, so a talk in a psychiatrist’s office is much different than a conversation in a park. The place can change the conversation and its context a lot.
Plot and Characters
Will Hunting is college-aged man hanging out in South Boston with a bunch of blue collar working friends. Will has a job as a janitor at MIT. Even though it is obvious his group of buddies are close, Will seems to be a loner. He is quiet, soft spoken and different from the others. He has not had an easy life because he was orphaned as a child and grew up in several different foster homes. One scene shows him sitting in a chair reading in his house. The room is empty except for the chair Will is sitting on and piles and piles of books all around him (Van Sant, 0-2.4 minutes, GWH).
The next important scene for the plot shows Will with his broom sweeping the hall corridors at MIT. He stops in front of a blackboard filled with complicated mathematical equations. Will sets his broom aside, stares at the equations then he picks up a piece of chalk and writes a solution to one of the most difficult math problems in the world. A math professor sees him but Will runs a way (13:57 min., GWH). Will gets into a fight and ends up in jail. The math professor bails Will out of prison and makes a deal with him; Will can take classes but he has to see a psychiatrist to work out his personal issues (Van Sant, 13:57 min, GWH). Will agrees but he is so hostile to the psychiatrists that no one wants to work with him (Van Sant, 27:45 min., GWH). Finally Sean, a sad and serious psychiatrist, agrees to work with Will even though Will has such a terrible attitude (Van Sant, 33:26 min., GWH). The relationship and the communication between Will and Sean are central to the movie and to Will’s ability to move on with his life.
The Film’s Interpersonal Dynamics
Will Hunting is a good listener, that is to say he has the ability to hear and he understands communication dynamics in a social setting like the local tavern. He cannot emphasize with what is being said though in a way that would allow him to reciprocate. We start to understand he is too busy trying to protect himself from something, maybe hearing his own feelings or maybe because he does not want to slip up and share something that would help the receiver get to know Will Hunting better. Socially acceptable communication is a skill that Will needs to learn. He and his buddies are close but when they talk to each other they are mostly swearing and having fun or quarreling.
Will is very cruel to Sean during the first few weeks of their appointments for Will’s therapy. Will uses communication to deflect attention away from his own personality and his heavy-duty problems. He communicates with anger and drama. Sean is having his own problems coping with the death of his wife. Will realizes Sean’s loss is a trigger that guarantees Sean will reject any attempt to communicate with Will using the dynamic of a therapist and patient. Sean uses many different communication techniques to try to connect with Will. The most successful is when Sean changes the environment for their appointments; instead of meeting in Sean’s office they meet in a park (Van Sant, 46+ min., GWH). Also instead of sitting facing each other across a desk they sit on a park bench looking at a lake while they talk. Within this new environment the whole context of their former communication is left behind. The two men start being able to communicate in a positive way.
Sean comes up with ways to breakdown Will’s assumptions that he is using as excuses to keep Sean at a distance. He finds themes they have in common to use as a basis for creating some feelings of empathy in Will. Baseball is one way and bringing up values they share is another. Because Sean is from the same socio-economic background as Will he is better able to emphasize with Will’s problems and feelings. Will is also able to accept Sean because they come from similar background; since they have a lot in common they do not need to go through a period of decoding symbols to understand each other.
Will wants to develop a functional relationship with a woman at the university named Skyler. His goal is to have romantic relationship with her. A major problem arises because Skyler is going to continue her school at Stanford University in California (Van Sant, 1:24, GWH). That is a long way from Boston. Even though Skyler has made it very clear she would like Will to go to California with her, Will is procrastinating and argues with Skyler on making a decision until finally Chuckie intervenes (Van Sant, 1:42, GWH.
Chuckie has been Will’s best friend since they were kids but they do not seem to have ever talked about important decisions that have to be made in life. Chuckie is more comfortable with having a serious conversation than Will but he has respected Will’s desire to not talk about certain subjects. Now that it has become public knowledge that Will is a genius and Will has been going through many changes - the way Chuckie and Will talk to each other changes too. Chuckie talks to Will in a very direct and honest way instead of the joking-around way they have usually talked to each other. This change in their communication pattern is a signal that they are no longer children but they are now adults.
There is a lot of dysfunctional communication which becomes functional and healthy in this movie because of Will’s new found self esteem. Instead of treating Sean like an enemy and confronting him like an adversary, Will learns to empathize with Sean. Their relationship transforms into a caring, father-son relationship. Will becomes comfortable with his own skills and that leads to a change in the way he talks with “college kids.” Will does not resent them like he did and does not judge them so harshly for being in a different socio-economic class. Will learns how to respect Chuckie because Chuckie has respect for Will.
Will is transformed from the bitter, outraged person who cannot work out his own problems to a happier, self confident person. Learning to emphasize and really hear what people were saying was the way he learned to accept the world; it was the way he was healed from many of his old wounds. Sean was finally able to breakdown Will’s defenses by using communication as the tool. Talking together as therapist and patient did not work to heal Will’s wounds but when the two of them start to interrelate on a family basis (father to son; son to father) the transformations are amazing. Instead of using conflict to protect himself, by the end of the film Will develops healthier communication skills.
References
Van Sant, G., Director. Good Will Hunting. Miramax Productions. 1997.
