Review of Stand by Me (1986) by Michael K — 02 Dec 2014

Stand by me is directed by Rob Reiner and is a beautiful coming of age story that is based on the Stephen King novella 'The Body.'.

It follows four young boys travelling 30 miles to find a dead boy who was killed by a train. They are doing this because they want to become famous, but on their travels they start to become men. And we really get more in depth within the characters backgrounds.

All of the actors in this movie are brilliant but specifically River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton. There chemistry and realistic friendship make this movie even more believable, and through the movie we get to see friendships break, and become even more stronger than they already are.

The four boys are all physically and mentally different. Corey Feldman's character Teddy is literally mental. He is un-stable, we see this when he stands in front of a train and doesn't get out of the way. and keeps talking about his dad storming the beach in Normandy and is very protective over his dad even though his dad burned his ear on a stove on purpose.

There is also a thug group in this movie that terrorises the kids, one of them is Kiefer Sutherland who is brilliant in this movie even though he plays a complete jerk.

The movie is narrated by an older version of Gordie, played by Wil Wheaton who is writing a book based on his travels to find the body of a young boy.

At the end of the movie we hear an interesting piece of dialogue by older Wil Wheaton. "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" This quote defines how fun it was when you were a kid and that you will never have friends like that again.

Overall Stand by me is a beautiful movie that reminisces of the joyous childhood memories of a young boy and his friends going on an adventure, even though the outcome isn't particularly jolly.