The movie poster for Finding Forrester.

      Good Will Hunting was another film by director Gus Van Sant. This film came out in 1997 to wide praise and critical acclaim, earning two Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Screenplay (IMDb.com). After Finding Forrester entered theaters three years later, many criticized it due to its similarities to Good Will Hunting; after all, they each had the same director, and essentially the same plot: a young genius encounters a mentor that helps them find their potential in their craft and in life. Though many regard Good Will Hunting as superior, Finding Forrester is able to handle the mentor/student relationship much differently.

      In Finding Forrester, the film is set in the Bronx and the mentor/student relationship is between a black teen and an old white man, as opposed to Good Will Hunting being set in South Boston with both members of the mentor/student relationship being white. This allows Finding Forrester to have a dynamic between the races of Jamal and Forrester that can’t be obtained in Good Will Hunting. Though this dynamic is only slightly touched on explicitly in the film by the characters, the context of Good Will Hunting and other movies involving somebody helping someone in an impoverished area adds a lot to the dynamic. In the case of Good Will Hunting, the film is solely about the main character and how his mentor helps him overcome his problems and reach his potential. In Finding Forrester, the film is equally, if not more so, about how Jamal helps Forrester than about how Forrester helps Jamal. The name of the movie, Finding Forrester, indicates that the film is about Forrester and his change instead of about Jamal. Even the movie poster has Forrester dominating the picture. 

The movie poster for Good Will Hunting.

      Throughout the film, Forrester’s changes seem to be on a much larger scale than Jamal’s. Jamal helps Forrester end a 40 year span of being shut off from the world and then reintegrate back into society by deciding to “find his roots” by traveling to Scotland; whereas, Forrester only helps Jamal decide on what school to attend and prevents him from getting expelled from that school.

      This all shows that Jamal improved Forrester more than Forrester improved Jamal. This is in deep contrast to Good Will Hunting, where the main character has a great impact on his mentor, but it doesn’t change him like it does with Forrester. This is an important point to Finding Forrester, because it doesn’t show a wealthy old white man rescuing the poor and helpless black individual. It gets away from the idea of the White Savior by showing how Jamal helped and changed Forrester more than he helped Jamal. It shows that the poor black teen can have a more profound effect on the rich white man. It rejects the White Savior idea and it shows the strength and individualism of Jamal. It stops presenting minorities in film as needing to be saved and it shows their abilities and strengths.