Reading is close to poetry. And the results are so convincing that they make you forget to accept that the characters are practicing. It’s the kind of movie that emotionally hits so close to home at any level that you no longer looks like you’re just watching a film, you feel like you’re right there with those characters in the same place, feeling the same conditions that they are.

In Good Will Hunting, Will (Matt Damon), who grew up in rough South Boston as an abusive foster boy, works at MIT as a janitor. A professor looks for him as he solves complex math problems that have stumped the students, only to discover that he is in prison for assaulting a policeman. The professor promises he will work with Will to get psychiatric support from him.

The professor tries out his distant college friend, Sean (Robin Williams), while Will manages to scare off a series of therapists. Sean, like Will, is the victim of a rough Southie childhood, still dealing with his own loss, which means Sean is able to make Will know that by using his gifts to enlarge his world, he is not betraying his mates.

Will fell in love with pre-med Harvard student Skylar (Minnie Driver) along the way. She and Sean teach him that he no longer wants the barriers he created to shield himself from suffering and that they are only getting in his way.