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The Appropriate Tune: 'Stand By Me' by John Lennon
It would’ve been pretty ironic if the year I decided to do an all adaptation edition of the Marathon that I just didn’t have Stephen King, huh? Hilarious even. Good thing we didn’t do it then, because this is a mature, adult-oriented blog dedicated to serious film criticism. No jokes should be made, not even unintentionally, or this noble art would be forever tainted. So yet another Stephen King adaptation, but rather than doing something obvious like Lawnmower Man or The Langoliers, how about we cover something a little more obscure?
Released in 1986, Stand By Me was directed by Rob Reiner, written by Bruce A Evans and Raynold Gideon and produced by Evans, Gideon and Andrew Scheinman through Act III Productions, based on the 1982 novella “The Body” by Stephen King. Gordie Lachance brings us to the town of Castle Rock, Oregon in the year 1959, when he (as played by Wil Wheaton) was 12 years old, and he and his buddies Chris (River Phoenix), Teddy (Corey Feldman) and Verne (Jerry O’Connell) whiled away the summer days before the big move to junior high. One day Verne arrives at the treehouse and reveals that he had overheard two teenage tough talk about discovering a body in the woods a town or so over while stealing a car, likely that of Ray Brower, a local boy who had recently gone missing. This news excites the boys -- if they were able to locate the body and subsequently report it to the authorities, they’d be hailed as heroes! So that’s exactly what they decide to do, gathering their supplies and making the long journey to the corpse of Ray Brower. A literal journey, with all its trials and tribulations, and one of self-discovery, over the course of one crazy weekend in the summer of 59.
While nowadays the American 1950’s is almost universally reviled as a period of bigotry, violence and sterile social conformity (which it was, to be fair), in the 1980s the shine had not quite left the rose. Films like American Graffiti and Grease and TV shows like Happy Days had not quite faded from the public consciousness yet, and bands like The Stray Cats were able to find success on the charts thanks to the rise of MTV and the thorough pilfering of the Atomic Age aesthetic. Given that, and the comedic bent to Rob Reiner’s creative work up to this point, a potential viewer might assume that this would also be a comedic nostalgia trip, a prototypical edition of The Sandlot. Although Gordie’s recollection of that time is ultimately positive however and there are definitely moments of humor, it is also made clear that this is in spite of the abuse that the boys go via their parents, other adults, and teenagers like Ace and his gang. They were ‘free’ in a Peter Pan esque way that many kids today couldn’t fathom, able to smoke cigarettes and carry guns and walk around unfettered by the need for supervision, but they did so under an atmosphere of ugly craziness that would become the standard in the 1970’s. Even the soundtrack, filled with the hits of the day by Buddy Holly and The Chordettes, seems almost Lynchian in the way it juxtaposes the saccharine ideal with the harsh reality. All of which would seem to place Stand By Me firmly in the latter category, but I think Stephen King manages to capture the human element that is often dismissed in recreations of the period.
Stand By Me then is a coming-of-age story in two forms: the literal journey to Ray Brower’s corpse, overcoming the trials and tribulations set before them and so establishing their independence, and the emotional journey where they are forced to confront the trauma in their lives. Such a story requires a strong cast to do it justice and that’s precisely what Rob Reiner did, putting together a cast of kids that I don’t think I’ve ever seen matched in subsequent kids movies. All four leads put in great work here, you can see why they all went on to have some degree of success in Hollywood later on, but I have to give the nod to River Phoenix here. He hadn’t even hit puberty and yet he had such an impressive command of the tragic core of the character; Wise beyond his years, playing the role of best friend, surrogate brother and mentor all at once, but at the end of the day he’s still just a kid, and so those moments when he does show vulnerability, are all the more impactful because of it. So while Stand By Me is about Gordie dealing with the death of his brother, it’s about his relationship with Chris and how vital our bonds with our friends can be, especially when we’re young.
As far as directing goes, Stand By Me is simple but effective. Reiner isn’t reinventing the wheel here, but what he does is very direct and evocative, which is what a story like Stand By Me calls for, dealing as it does with memory and the perspective of children. I especially like the train scene: a dangerous set piece in any other film, but from the perspective of children seems downright apocalyptic.
Stand By Me easily gets the recommendation. Stephen King built his career on horror and the supernatural, and although the macabre premise of ‘children looking for a corpse’ would seem to fit right into his wheelhouse, his exploration of guilt, abusive relationships and its impact on developing minds proved he was more than a genre writer. Similarly Rob Reiner would cement his position in the upper echelon of directors of the period, a streak that would last all the way up the mid 90’s, when North would finally derail his momentum. Kiefer Sutherland also proved he could play a good psycho, which certainly came in handy when he would play a psycho years later on TV. So definitely a film worth putting on this Halloween, but maybe don’t try and pull a double feature with The Goonies or Monster Squad, else the emotional whiplash might hurt something fierce.
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