Good Will Hunting and Dear Zindagi are same movie?
You must be thinking I am maybe lost to make such a claim.
But be with me for a minute and we will get to the bottom of this.
As I started reading Save the Cat!, I reached the section on movie “genres”. Well, Blake does not prefer that we call them genres, but “Story Types“. And there are 10 types given in the book.
One of them is…
Rites of Passage
By definition, rites of passage is a ceremony or event marking an important stage in someone’s life, especially birth, transition from childhood to adulthood, marriage, and then death.
These Rite of Passage stories are about change and growing pains, and that’s why they register with us. Because these are the most sensitive times in our lives. Well, everyone’s life.
And the moral of the story is always the same: That’s life. Things happen.
Will and Kaira
Will from Good Will Hunting thinks he is smarter than everyone, and therefore, he is safe. Kaira from Dear Zindagi believes there is something about her that makes her fall for the wrong men.
What we, as an audience, can see is that Will is just a terrified, abused child hiding behind his genius.
And Kaira sabotages intimacy because she fears abandonment.
Different personalities. Same defense mechanism. Protection.
Catalyst
Both meet therapist characters. Shah Rukh Khan (Dr. Jahangir Khan) in Dear Zindagi and Robin Williams (Sean McGuire) in Good Will Hunting.
And for the first time in their lives, they experience something new. Someone who sees them, but does not judge them.
They get to know their monsters.
For Will, it is trauma and fear of intimacy.
For Kaira, it is fear of abandonment and emotional avoidance rooted in childhood neglect.
We do see some scenes from Kaira’s past, her parents “abandoning” young Kaira.
But we never really see the trauma that Will went through.
His trauma is implied, not shown. And that is the brilliance. We do not need to see it. We still feel it.
The Lie they believe
This is where it gets interesting.
Almost every Rite of Passage story has a lie the protagonist believes.
Will’s lie is simple. I do not need anyone. If I stay alone, I cannot get hurt.
Kaira’s lie is quieter but deeper. Something is wrong with me. That is why people leave.
And everything they do in the movie is just them trying to protect that lie.
Until it starts breaking.
Realization
As Rite of Passage movies go, only experience can offer the solution the protagonist needs.
Experience. Sitting in therapy. Talking. Resisting. Breaking down. Sitting again.
Through therapy with Shah Rukh Khan and Robin Williams, Will and Kaira slowly realise that their inability to move forward is coming from unresolved wounds from the past.
And then comes that moment.
“It’s not your fault.”
Not just a line from Good Will Hunting, but the entire point of both stories.
Because that is the moment where the lie finally cracks.
Maybe it’s not my fault.
Maybe I am not broken.
Maybe I just never learned how to deal with this.
So are they the same movie?
Yes and no.
One is set in Boston with a math genius.
The other is set in Goa and Mumbai with a cinematographer.
One is loud, raw, and explosive.
The other is soft, quiet, and almost comforting.
But strip everything away, and both are telling the same story.
A person who built walls to survive
and then had to learn how to live without them.
And maybe that is why that one line hits so hard.
Because deep down, all of us are just waiting to believe it.
It’s not your fault.