Author Gordie Lachance recounts a moment from his childhood in which he and three friends went searching for a dead body. Gordie’s parents, still mourning the passing of his star-brother Denny, at best ignore Gordie and at worst resent him. Gordie hangs out with son of a drunk, Chris Chambers, son of a traumatized veteran, Teddy, and the pudgy, fearful Vern. Vern’s brother reveals he found the dead body of local boy Ray Brower but can’t report it because authorities would learn he stole a car. Vern shares this information and the boys embark on a two-day journey to find the body, report it, and—in their minds—become heroes. Along the way, the quartet banters about the silly things they find important and faces treacherous obstacles, like leeches, a daring sprint across an active train bridge, and a run in with local hoodlum “Ace” Merrill. Gazing upon Ray Brower’s dead body, Gordie must confront dark feelings that he’d be ‘better off dead’; with the help of Chris, Gordie grows confidence in himself, his storytelling, his ability to face “Ace”, and the next, uncertain stage of life.
“Stand By Me” is about the powerful role our young friendships play in the course of our lives. I think I may have seen this flick (or at least parts of it) as a teenager and it didn’t land for me, likely because I didn’t have enough life under my feet to appreciate it. To be honest, I still don’t care for films where child actors keep yelling at each other as a shortcut to "act natural" (I’m looking at *you*, “Goonies”), but this one sort of won me over. Like “The Sandlot”, but depressing, this film lives in an interesting space where it exudes the bubble-gum ‘50s nostalgia this country is obsessed with but acknowledges the trauma of those raised in the wake of war. The boys are finally old enough to see the pain in those around them and can calculate the effect it will have on their own lives. Being 12 is sort of the “first day of the rest of your life”; the moment early nuggets begin to form of who you will grow into, for all the good, the bad, the celebratory, and the tragic. Though many of us seem to grow further from the friends who guided us through this tumultuous period, this film celebrates the adventure, happiness, and sadness of this important moment in our lives.