Review of Stand by Me (1986) by Aleyna U — 27 Nov 2017

Film Review : Stand by Me.

Stand by me is an astonishing film based on the novella " the body" by Stephen King. This movie is about these four best friends : Gordie Lachance, Chris Chamber, Vern Tessio and Teddy Duchamp who go on this thrilling adventure to find the body of a dead boy, Ray Brower.

Each of these young 12-13 years old boys have an interesting story: Gordie (main character) lived with his mother,father and brother. Sadly, his brother Denny passed away and Gordie felt like he wasn't really paid any attention to. Chris (the leader of their "Gang"), has a father that drinks too much and a brother, Eyeball Chambers, who is also leader of another gang and a bully.

Chris is kind of on his own as well. Vern lives with his brother, Billy Tessio who is another bully (in eyeball's gang) and his parents. Then, there is Teddy Duchamp, he has a burnt ear because his dad was an alcoholic who had anger issues and put his ear on the stove.

Honestly, I have some few things I don't really like about the film. For me, the ending was kind of sad... I wish I could change it to make it happier. Then there is a part in the movie that involves a certain animal, which I find disturbing. Expect for these two facts, there isn't more that I dislike about the movie.

Now, one of the things I liked about the movie is that it's well structured ; at the beginning, they are not really grown up, goofing around with each other... and at the end, they overcame dangerous and daring obstacles which made them more mature and they stood up for each other. Next, there is the basic idea of the story (which is all based on finding the body), I really like adventure films, action films but, it's also a comedy film because it contains some funny parts. Also, I really like the characters. Gordie is my favourite because he's full of surprises and unexpected. I can't say more or I will reveal spoilers.

My favourite part in the movie would be around the middle of the film. They face a great danger containing a vehicle in very ,very high place. It just keeps you guessing : will they get out of it? What's going to happen? And it makes you feel like you're there just witnessing the scene waiting for something to just happen. What's good is that we feel as if we struggle with the boys as they grow older (mentally).

Stand by me is probably a film appropriate for young teenagers looking for adventures, action and comedy. By reading the description, you might think that only younger children will appreciate this film but that's not true at all : this film deals with the hard times of change, self acceptance and obviously, friendship. I think that for younger audiences, it would be hard for them to understand the complexity of these themes. And adults would like this film too, it might remind them of their childhood, the adventures they went on as kids.

Moving on, Stand by me is a film with a lot of imagery : there is the narrator's voice during the film, sometimes he talks while describing something like : the weather, how they felt, their surroundings... if we close our eyes, we can imagine the scene, we don't even have to look at what's happening since it's so well described. Besides imagery, You can't really find much of figurative language since it is a film.

Now I can relate to the film in certain ways. When I was younger, I was goofing around lot with my friends (I still do but less) but in a different way. Some scenes of this film made me remember some times I had with my friends that I don't usually think about.

In conclusion, I think this is a pretty good film that I recommend to a lot of people. It's funny and shows phases of growing up that we can discover. I give it a rating of ????????/5 because, as I said in the 3rd paragraph, the ending isn't really great and I am not a fan of a certain scene.