STAND BY ME

(August 1986, U.S.)

In 1986, when learned that Rob Reiner's new film STAND BY ME was based on a short story by Stephen King, I was convinced that a mistake must have been made somewhere. By then, I'd read my fair share of King's horror novels and nothing I'd seen so far even closely resembled the idea of a coming-of-age tale between young boys (I mean, not unless these young boys killed each other, or something!). Still, because I'd already enjoyed Reiner's first two features (THIS IS SPINAL TAP and THE SURE THING), I figured I had nothing to lose by giving his third one a try, especially since it was conveniently playing across the street from my college dorm in Buffalo, New York.

To my pleasant surprise, the film started out with Richard Dreyfuss. There was definitely something I loved about this guy since I was a kid. As he flashback'd his story of when he was a kid with his three best friends back in 1959, I found that getting caught up in the past of one's life on film was an easy, if not welcomed, appreciation. Because the power of the motion picture can often provoke our own memories of the past, our own childhoods can soon flash vividly before our eyes (but I'll get into that later). Dreyfuss's character of young twelve year-old Gordie (played by Wil Wheaton) is a quiet kid blessed with the gift of telling and writing entertaining stories, but cursed with the trauma of his older brother's death and the parents who have no feelings of love to give him in the wake of such a tragedy. Gordie's friends, for each of their own personal reasons, are just as messed up as he is. Chris (played by the late River Phoenix) comes from a family of local hicks who's not expected to ever get any further than the shabby little town of Castle Rock, Oregon (Maine in King's story) he lives in. Teddy (played by Corey Feldman) is a wild trouble maker who's unstable father (a World War II veteran who stormed the beach at Normandy) has been known to abuse him. Vern is, well...fat, and therefore suffers his own demons of being a kid who often feels like an outsider, despite the apparent closeness he feels with his immediate friends.

With the simple question of, "You guys wanna go see a dead body?", the journey of these boys begins; a overnight hike and camping trip to go feast their eyes on a corpse (now THAT sounds like the Stephen King I know!) and maybe even get their pictures in the local paper for reporting the discovery. Along the way, it's the traditional banter and exchange of verbal abuse that one might expect between close buddies, including plenty of profanity and the degrading of each of their mothers. However, Reiner wants to remind us that twelve year-old boys, immature though they usually are, are still people that feel, that hurt, and that ultimately want to be understood by those who know them best. Fears and weaknesses are revealed between them, and for at least the duration of twenty-four hours, they have a better knowledge of what makes each of them tick, though I can't honestly say that we end up knowing too much more about Vern at the end than when we first meet him in the gang's tree house.

By the time they're reached the dead body of Ray Brower, they not only have to fight for themselves against the older (and far more abusive) gang of high school boys (headed by a young Kiefer Sutherland), but also have to fight the dark side within themselves of why they made this journey in the first place. Twenty-four hours ago, it was about discovery and glory. Now it's about the life of a young boy who was violently struck down by a moving train, and there's no denying that these four kids are different (and even sadder) people because of this. There's something very poignant about this self discovery because it's only a matter of a single day after Labor Day weekend that the four of them will likely be separated by the new demands and friendships of junior high school. When it's over, our full grown Gordie (Dreyfuss) tells us of the inevitable drifting apart and failures of what we thought might have been life long friendships, as well as potential life successes. We also learn that Chris, the one most likely to fail in life, did succeed as a lawyer, only to die a young man when he was stabbed to death in a fast food restaurant. Such irony...and such a waste.

It occurs to me that one must truly accept STAND BY ME as autobiographical of Stephen King himself in order to fully appreciate its intent, otherwise we're likely to accept the film as nothing more than traditional narrative drama. The performances are satisfying enough from children, but again, we must go beyond the obvious here and try to understand what a man like King was when he was a boy. Small boys very likely don't have writing horror on their minds. At this age, they're simply going through the glory days of their life enjoying the pop cultures of fast cars and rock and roll radio in a small town. This was the simplicity of King as a boy and Rob Reiner clearly understands it. Perhaps this is why King called STAND BY ME "the best film ever made out of anything I've written". Whether you agree with that or not is completely up to you and your taste in King-made films. Personally, I'll still always go with Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING (the one film adaptation King prefers the least!).

Now for myself and my own childhood, I had my very small group of friends at twelve years-old, but that sort of camaraderie mostly took place during the summer when my family occupied our former home in Westhampton Beach, Long Island. The days were endless as me and my buddies spent our time at the beach, swimming in the ocean, riding our bikes along the shore and playing video games at the local merchant's store. We may never have left home for an overnight's journey, but it was still our time. As Dreyfuss writes at the end of the film, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.", I can't help but think that wasn't necessarily the case for me. There were good friends in my life at twelve, but there were others that were better when I got older. Some of them are still in my life today. I thank them for that.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Ace Merrill: "Okay...okay...you've stated your position clearly. Now I'm gonna state mine. Get in the fucking car, now!"