UNDENIABLE CHARMS OF `GOOD WILL HUNTING'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

Gus Van Sant, the outlaw director responsible for the likes of ``Drugstore Cowboy,'' ``My Own Private Idaho'' and ``To Die For,'' takes a cuddlier tack with his latest feature, ``Good Will Hunting.''

It's a nicely observed, sometimes spectacularly acted character study that never fails to be intelligent but often strains credibility. That it was written by two of its young stars, Matt Damon (``The Rainmaker'') and Ben Affleck (``Chasing Amy''), is undeniably impressive; there's a good deal of mature wisdom on display here. And if the film is rife with gratuitous feel-goodishness, at least some of that can be shrugged off to youthful enthusiasm.

Damon plays Will Hunting, a generally charming product of tough South Boston and, by the way, an off-the-charts genius. A survivor of too many unregulated foster homes, Will lives for his working-class buddies (Affleck's good-natured Chuckie prime among them), with whom he parties, commits misdemeanors and labors at menial jobs.

Will reveals his potential for cracking the cold fusion conundrum during a custodial stint at M.I.T., where the profs pose brainbusting physics questions on communal blackboards in the hallways for all students to take a stab at solving. Professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard, from ``Breaking the Waves''), thunderstruck by Will's equations, determines to keep the next Einstein out of jail and channel his talent in worthy directions. Will is not real cooperative in this effort, forcing Lambeau to seek the help of an old, resentful colleague now teaching psychology at a junior college.

Sean McGuire (Robin Williams, really acting for the first time in a while), also hails from South Boston, which makes him the only shrink Will can relate to - and can't drive crazy. Though their sessions are hardly models of decorum, Sean and Will develop the inevitable, surrogate father-son bond as surely as Sean and Lambeau fall out over just what is most important for Will's life at this point.

Meanwhile, Will is doing a little extracurricular reaching out to an enchanting English Harvard student, Skylar (Minnie Driver). Things proceed apace toward the pop-psych equivalent of a Promise Keepers weep-a-thon, complete with Sean's touching paeans to marital passion (he is, as if he could possibly be anything else, a widower whose own emotional life is on hold).

The film's touchy-feely elements, like its take on working-class life, are simultaneously questionable and refreshing. Here is one movie that does not characterize troubled youth purely in pathological terms; Will and his pals are decent, likable guys whose mildly antisocial tendencies are primarily a means for keeping life interesting.

But as respectful as this depiction may be, it doesn't make for the most dramatic situations. Will, especially, is so charismatic and gifted and in every other way attractive that his harlequin rebelliousness and weakly barricaded feelings seem less like problems than a few extra, intriguing traits.

Still, Van Sant has always had a knack for understanding misfits, and it's evident here in scene after carefully calibrated scene. He insists on honest performances and mops the slop out of this fundamentally sentimental, manipulative story as much as is humanly possible. That goes a long way toward putting the whole thing across with dignity.

Still, it can't be too hard to make a movie about a misfit that every single person in the audience will wish they were like.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Good Will Hunting'' (R; language, violence).

The stars: Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver and Stellan Skarsgard.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Gus Van Sant. Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Produced by Lawrence Bender. Released by Miramax Films.

Running time: Two hours, four minutes.

Playing: Beverly Connection, West Hollywood; Cineplex Odeon Broadway, Santa Monica.

Our rating: Three Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Minnie Driver plays a Harvard student - and Matt Damon's love interest - in ``Good Will Hunting.''