By Jake Hjort, Contributing Writer
Welcome back, fellow time travelers, to another edition of 20th Century Flicks! This month, in a continued effort to check classic cinema off of my list of shame, I’ve delved back to 1986 to watch Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me. After the tragic murder of Reiner and his wife last month, I wanted to pay tribute to him in my first column of the year. 20th Century Flicksis certainly no stranger to Reiner’s filmography, having covered him as a director in When Harry Met Sally… and as an actor in Sleepless in Seattle, so this time I wanted to look at something a little different in his iconic coming-of-age drama.
Set in 1959 Oregon, Stand by Me follows a group of four preteen boys as they set out on a journey to see a dead body. The gang consists of Gordie (Wil Wheaton), Chris (River Phoenix), Teddy (Corey Feldman), and Vern (Jerry O’Connell), a cohort of young men trying to navigate complicated social and family dynamics and find their place in the world. Along the way we see various vignettes of their travel as they face various perils and philosophical quandaries, each processing their own traumas and forging bonds that only children can forge.
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”
Such is the thesis statement and final line of Stand by Me, uttered by a now-adult Gordie as he reflects on his memory of this journey with his friends following the passing of Chris. This is a line that really resonated with me when I first heard it and is one that I’ve continued to ponder in the days since. When you are young and the world is small, there is little that seems to be more important than friendship and those bonds are truly unlike any other. I’m fortunate to still be close with many of my middle school friends and no matter how much our lives have diverged, every time we get together it feels as though we are instantly teleported back to our youths.
Of course, none of this realism and resonance would be as effective if not for the excellent character work and performances at the center of the film. All four of the boys are well-fleshed out with unique stories and motivations that drive them and each of the four actors portraying them feel perfectly well-suited for their roles. Each of these kids have faced more struggle in their young lives than they ought to have, from Gordie’s position as the “invisible boy” following the death of his older brother, to Teddy’s abuse at the hands of his alcoholic, WWII veteran father. Within a few scenes you feel like you really know these four and the relationships between them, which makes it all the more satisfying as more layers are pulled back as the story progresses.
While the four boys are definitely the standouts of the film, there are a few big names in supporting performances that are well worth a shoutout as well. John Cusack shines in a couple scenes as Gordie’s late brother, helping to inform Gordie’s empathy and sensitivity. In stark contrast we have Kiefer Sutherland as the bully Ace, an older boy who leads a gang opposing our protagonist’s quest. Though he only briefly appears in the film physically as an older Gordie, Richard Dreyfuss also serves as a great narrator throughout.
Alongside the great performances, what really helps to set the scene and immerse you in this world are the production design and the soundtrack. A good period piece shouldn’t need to tell you what era it’s set in but rather transport you there with the sounds and sights of the time. Stand by Me exudes the late 50s Americana vibes, from the sets to the costumes to the needle drops throughout the film, including The Chordettes’ Lollipop, Jerry Lee Lewis’s Great Balls of Fire, and, of course, Ben E. King’s Stand by Me that plays over the credits.
Unfortunately, there’s one thing that stops me from falling head-over-heels, 10/10 in love with this film: the Lard-ass sequence. While on their journey, Gordie tells his friends the story of “Lard-ass,” an overweight boy who enters a pie-eating contest in order to get revenge on all those who bullied him. While eating, the boy forces himself to vomit, which snowballs into a “barf-o-rama” as everyone in the audience becomes violently ill as well. The scene is frankly disgusting and unpleasant to watch and completely halted any momentum that the film had built up until that point for no benefit that I can perceive. I understand that the scene is directly adapted from the Stephen King novel that the film is based on, but I really feel like this is a moment that should have otherwise been left on the cutting room floor. In an otherwise spotless film, this unfortunate blemish really stands out and is a scene that I plan to skip on any future rewatch.
That being said, Stand by Me is still a great film that I loved watching. Though these kids’ childhoods have more in common with my grandparents’ than my own, these concepts of the bonds of friendship transcend time and generational divides. Stand by Me is considered by many to be the quintessential coming-of-age film, an endorsement in which I would wholeheartedly agree.
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