Stand by Me, based on a Steven King novella, is a coming of age
drama about four young boys who set out one morning in search of a dead body
that is rumoured to be lying not far from their small Oregonian town. Over the
course of a couple of days they encounter excitement and danger and return as
changed people on the cusp of adulthood. The film has a classic charm and easy
on the eyes style which rolls slowly out in front of the audience. It takes its
time and focuses on the character’s journey and is only lightly interspersed
with action. The movie is more dramatic than the more comedic but similarly
themed The Goonies and it features
more adult language. I believe however that the language realistically captures
the way that boys of that age, from that era would have spoken and it doesn’t
hold back to make itself available to all ages.
Even though the film is set
nearly thirty years before I was born and on an entirely different continent,
many of its ideas reminded me of my own childhood. It made me yearn for the
days of adventure when a friend would arrive excitedly at my house to announce
that he had found a dead cat or that a window was open in a house under
construction around the corner. That rush of youthful excitement and danger is
something which you don’t experience as an adult and as the film clearly
states, your friends at that age are the closest you’ll ever have. The movie
made me feel very nostalgic and sad to be sitting on the sofa with grey hairs,
thinking about putting a load of washing on rather than throwing on a jacket
and running out of the house with reckless abandon.
