Watched this for the first time in years.
It's a combination of amazing performances and a script that is very tight in the first half but starts to meander in the second half. Scenes of Will convincing people of his amazing brain (the "photographic memory" scene in particular), Robin Williams talking about his wife, and Will & friends hanging around starts to drag out in the second half.
It's especially awkward at the start of the third act, when Will is self-destructing to everyone else but is still just shooting the shit with his friends. This would've been more effective if the friends had been acting towards Will in some way, perhaps as (yet again) a demonstration of loyalty that keeps Will by their side, but instead it's a scene about Casey Affleck masturbating.
This breaks up the narrative flow, as a momentum of Will systematically destroying the new status quo in his life, his potential future, is paused for hijinks. Don't get me wrong, these are fun scenes and all the actors have incredible chemistry together (although Affleck can be a little grating at times), but it started to drag out.
Considering the story is essentially over after the "it's not your fault scene", the movie goes all Lord of the Rings and has like five endings. Characters that felt like they had closure show back up, sometimes in the scene immediately after, to get more closure. Skarsgard, especially, gets the short shrift as his relationship with Will feels rather nebulous (is he a father figure? is Will just his secret weapon?), as we barely get Will's opinion of him and his (Skarsgard's arc) switches over to the tension between him and Robin Williams. Their scenes together are electrifying, by the way, but whereas Will has heart-to-heart after heart-to-heart with everyone else, he never settles things with Skarsgard.
Just playing devil's advocate here, looking for cracks in order to instigate discussion. I really do love this movie, the characters and the actors playing them. The "I don't love you" scene with Damon and Driver has me gritting my teeth every time (for some reason, no matter how many times I see it, I always feel like he's going to hit her, and then I'm relieved when he doesn't). Another thing about Driver and Damon, they're good cryers. Very authentic, especially Damon's bawling like a baby during his climactic scene with Williams.
Back in the day when Kevin Smith was producing the next big up-and-comers...
