Psychological drama well in the beginning of Ben Aflleck and Matt Damon in their careers - they star (with Matt in the role of the protagonist) and wrote the script together. The director was Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy).
The movie tells a story about a irish-descendant boy in Boston that works as janitor in a mathematics faculty, and it is a self-taught genius, with a troubled past and present - some mathematical riddles are left by the head of the chair in the faculty (Skarsgård) and mysteriously solved by night. Catching up with Matt Damon character Will he can be out of parole if he gets a job and consult with a psychiatrist what shows to be a tid bit tough thing.
The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed over $225 million during its theatrical run against a $10 million budget, and received nominations in nine categories, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won in two: Best Supporting Actor for Williams and Best Original Screenplay for Affleck and Damon. Nothing bad, at all for someone being just out of Harvard University. Anther curiosity: character Skylar in the movie have the same name and background of Matt Damon's girlfriend back then.
Robin Williams acts as the psychiatrist that could connect with this troubled boy, in a solid role - speaking of solid role it was nice to see Matt Damon out of some action movie in really nice drama scenes. Another actor that shows up is Stellan Skarsgård, yes the father of the four sons the most known being Bill (of "It").
Nice heartwarming moving movie thought the end with a solid script. I would scorre it a 8.0 out of 10.0 / B+. It is strange that I didn't even reminded this one back in 97, but then I remembered that that year I was in the 3rd year of Medicine so not much time to seeing movies I guess.