Gus Van Sant's 1997 film about Will Hunting — a self-educated mathematical genius working as a janitor at MIT whose defensive anger and fear of intimacy are slowly overcome by a therapist — the canonical popular film about the healing of childhood trauma.
Functions as the archetypal popular narrative of untapped genius blocked by trauma — demonstrating that intellectual and emotional development are intertwined and that genuine human connection (the therapist who insists 'It's not your fault') can unlock what intelligence alone cannot.
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