At this point, it's hard to argue that Rob Reiner's 1986 drama highlighting childhood friendships and the very moments of mental transitions from child to adult. In every sense of the word, the film is a classic, because regardless of how many years go by, the message will never change.
Stand by Me has a simple premise; four 12-year-old friends take a two-day journey to find the body of a missing local boy. While each character has their own distinct personality, their natures blend seamlessly with one another, creating a chemistry that is all too familiar with those who grew up in small towns, taking part in local shenanigans with their own individual tribes of friends. Watching the movie while young is thrilling and there's a sense of adventure. As an adult, it brings on more than just the nostalgia of an old film, but harsh realities about the story, too.
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10 Gordie's Parents Were Grieving, But They Were Also Pretty Terrible
Gordie's Father Regularly Compared Him To His Brother Denny Before & After He Died
Before the events of the film, Gordie's brother, Denny (played in a bit role by John Cusack) is killed in a car accident. Before Denny's death, the movie shows in flashbacks that Gordie's parents, especially his father, value Denny's choices and accomplishments much more than Gordie's. After Denny's death, Gordie's parents emotionally check out, and while Gordie tries to grieve the loss of his brother in his own way, his father is cold to him, doesn't allow Gordie in Denny's room, and disparages Gordie for his life and friend choices.
While Stephen King's short story The Body takes place in Castle Rock, Maine, Stand by Me takes places in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon.
The stress of grief from the loss of his sibling, along with the emotional distance that Gordie's parents put between them, causes Gordie to have nightmares about his brother's funeral, which culminate in his father saying "It should have been you." While the audience doesn't know if this was a moment in reality or a figment of Gordie's nightmare, it's enough to make Gordie believe he should have been the one to die, as he breaks down and sobs to Chris, lamenting his father's feelings toward him.
9 Ace Was Totally Fine With Maiming & Murdering Children
He Was Going To Slit Chris' Throat At The End Of The Film
The resident head delinquent, Ace (played masterfully by Kiefer Sutherland), has it out for the group of friends from the beginning. Ace pals around with Chris and Vern's brothers, but that doesn't stop him from routinely making threats and almost putting a cigarette out in Chris' eye. In a race to be the first group to find the body, Ace and his friends arrive second. After Chris stands up to him, Ace pulls a switchblade and lunges for Chris' throat, before Gordie repels him with a handgun. Without hesitation, Ace was going to murder Chris in front of several witnesses.
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8 Vern Is Clearly The Group's Whipping Boy
No One Takes Him Serious Or Cares About His Opinions
While Vern is in a lot of the film's funniest moments, and is mostly seen as unserious, he's the friend of the group who gets picked on the most. No one else listens to him; none of them take him seriously, and they spend most of the movie telling him to shut up or call him names. Vern is regularly bullied by his own brother, and he's seen as a coward throughout the film, as no one ever instills confidence in him. It's no surprise that at the movie's ending, Vern loses touch with the group in high school.
7 Teddy Still Loved His Abusive Father
Teddy Romanticizes HIs Father As A Way To Feel Close To Him
In Stand by Me, Teddy is extremely defensive of his father. Viewing his dad as a war hero veteran who stormed the beaches in Normandy, Teddy looks up to his dad, even though in a fit of drunken rage, Teddy's father held Teddy's ear to the hot burner on the stove, disfiguring it. It's clear that Teddy has some serious mental issues throughout the film, probably brought on by his conflicting internal feelings about his father, especially after the junkyard owner, Milo Pressman, tells the group that Teddy's father is a "looney up in nuthouse in Togus."
Teddy breaks down and is in denial about his father's mental state, looking to Chris for comfort and crying about his father's heroic war stories and calling Pressman a liar. Even though Teddy was abused by his mentally ill father, he still ires his dad and loves him enough to defend him vigorously.
6 Chris Was Haunted By His Family's Reputation
Chris Acted Up Because He Would Get Blamed For It Anyway
For most of the film, Chris is seen as the tough-guy, leader of the group. It isn't until later, when he's having a heart-to-heart with Gordie, that viewers realize that Chris is a lot softer than he appears. Chris tells Gordie a story about the milk money going missing at school, and how he was immediately blamed for it, because his family is known as the town troublemakers. Chris cries, revealing he wants more in life than what the town expects from him, and that though he did take the money, it was because he'd be blamed for it anyway.
5 The David "Lardass" Hogan Story Doesn't Hold Up Today
The Fatphobic Tale Is Tired In 2024
In Stand by Me, Gordie tells a story he wrote about David "Lardass" Hogan, an overweight kid who gets revenge on the town for making fun of his weight by... overeating at a pie contest and making himself vomit everywhere. The story was comedic for the 1950s, and shown in glorious, splatter-filled fashion in the 1980s, but in 2024, overweight people deserve better than to be the butt of the joke. It also falls in line with growing complaints of fatphobia in King's writing, which has been pointed out by Fantasy Magazine and The Loser's Club: A Stephen King Podcast.
4 Teddy Wanted To Die
He Tried To Commit Suicide By Train
Early in Stand by Me, Teddy decided to face down an oncoming train, making his friends think he was going to dodge it before hitting him. As the train looms closer, Teddy stands his ground, pretending to be his father on the field of war. As the train looms closer and closer, Chris intervenes and pulls Teddy off the tracks, who viciously fights him the entire time, yelling, "I'll kill you!" to Chris.
Chris tells Teddy he was trying to save his life, and asks him if he's trying to kill himself, to which Teddy responds to by just staring at Chris and saying, "I don't need no babysitter." Watching it later in life, the scene plays out that Teddy actually wants to die pretending to be his father, or at the very least, doesn't care if he dies.
3 Chris Dies Being A Protector
Chris Is Stabbed While Breaking Up A Fight
Throughout Stand by Me, Chris shows up as the protector of the group. He regularly steps between two other friends that fight; he comforts both Teddy and Gordie when they have emotional breakdowns, and he stands between Ace and his friends, even with the threat of death upon him. At the end of the film, when Gordie's narration sends off each of the characters, it's said that Chris, who has delivered on his dream of getting out and becoming successful, ends up being stabbed to death in a bar while trying to break up a fight between two people.
2 The Transitional Themes Of Childhood To Adulthood
The Loss Of Innocence
It isn't until watching Stand by Me as an adult that the themes of innocence lost can truly resonate. As the group finds Ray Brower's body, all of their intentions shift. As children, they wanted the fame of reporting the body, but upon seeing it, and getting a dose of adult reality, they see parts of themselves in Ray's death, and realize that even at their age, no one is invincible; children as young as them can die. It was then that Gordie decided that Ray deserved to stay at peace in death, and no one would take the body.
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Stand By Me's ending revealed what happened to Gordie, Vern, Teddy, and Chris after an interesting twist when they finally found Ray Brower's body.
1 Stand by Me Is Stephen King's Best Adaptation
Its Timelessness Leads To Countless Rewatches
Without doubt, Stephen King is the mind behind some of cinematic history's best films. And while movies like The Shining, The Green Mile, or The Shawshank Redemption get more attention, both critically and on an audience level, none of them have the emotional staying power of Stand by Me, mostly due to the fact that pretty much everyone experiences the coming-of-age themes that the film displays. Because its story is so familiar and experienced on so many levels, it becomes timeless and is always relevant, no matter who watches and at what time period.
Looking past the phenomenal acting, direction, music, and story work, Stand by Me hits on a level of nostalgia that none of King's other stories do, even his rare non-horror tales. It's a film that captures a part of the American childhood lifestyle flawlessly, and its audience can always relate with segmented, emotional moments. This makes it King's best, one of his favorite adaptations, or at least most rewatchable film.
Source: Fantasy Magazine, The Loser's Club Podcast
Stand By Me
- Release Date
- November 26, 1986
- Runtime
- 89 minutes
- Director
- Rob Reiner
Cast
Kiefer Sutherland
Jerry O'Connell
WHERE TO WATCH
Based on a Stephen King novella, and directed by Rob Reiner, Stand By Me follows the story of a group of young boys who set out on an expedition to find the dead body of another missing boy from their hometown. The film stars Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell, and is considered one of the most influential films of all time.
- Writers
- Bruce A. Evans, Raynold Gideon
- Distributor(s)
- Columbia Pictures
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