Watched: 12/30/2025
Format: Netflix
Viewing: Unknown
Director: Rob Reiner
There's a full run of movies we could have watched to salute Rob Reiner, but I was particularly onboard with Jamie's selection of Stand By Me (1986).
In no way is my experience unique - but I did see this in the theater at eleven years old (I guess my parents were not deterred by an R rating), and it became a movie I watched over and over on VHS - rented and then taped off HBO at some point. The soundtrack became part of my rotation, and is likely ground zero for my interest in Buddy Holly. (There's a different conversation about how I was as likely to have my radio set to an oldies station as a pop station growing up, anyway, but you get the picture). We adopted slang I use to this day - I am still known to describe things as "boss".
If Stranger Things is any indication, with the right material, we can relate more to the ages of characters and the universality of that experience than anything about eras in which stories appear. And I did.
After all, I was just a year younger than the characters in the film when I saw it August of 1986, about to enter Middle School - as the twelve year olds of the movie were about to enter Junior High. But I also remember the awareness the movie instilled in me of "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" A curious thing to put in a kid's mind. And true. I'm still friends with one or two of those guys.
It's a remarkable movie, really, which is a testament to King's novella upon which the movie is very closely based, to director Rob Reiner's vision, and the talent of the kid stars and young adults playing the hoods. It does possibly the best job of any film I think I've ever seen of getting at the reality and truths of being twelve - no longer a little kid, but not even a teenager yet. The characters aren't stereotypes, but they feel three-dimensional enough that you can see them for who they are. Poor Vern - the kid who will take a while to catch up. Teddy, the kid the adults know is going to struggle and maybe never had a chance. Chris, from the family of bad kids - but with maybe some promise. Gordie, the good kid misunderstood at home, now wrestling with trauma - and in an era when we didn't talk about those things.
But it's a movie that doesn't just struggle elegantly with grief - especially grief in the pre-therapy-era. It's a movie about that period in youth where you start figuring out the homelives of your friends are... complicated. And they may have feelings about it that they don't really talk about. And the movie knows that kids of that age mix up those moments between relentlessly giving your best friends shit, fighting with them verbally and sometimes physically, and defending each other in big and small ways.
Anyway - it's stunning how all involved tap into this feeling and capture this brief window and made such a lovely gem of a movie. The kids in the movie, some veteran, some less so, are so damn good for their age - no Disney Channel-flavored acting here. And, at age 11, 12, 13 - it was maybe one of the few movies I thought reflected anything like what it meant to be a kid.
At the time of the movie's release, 1959 was only 27 years prior. This was a movie likely aimed at guys a year or two younger than my parents. Wild that it's now nearly 40 years since I first saw it.
River Phoenix died of an overdose. Corey Feldman became whatever the modern version is of Feldman - musician? Entertainer? Cult leader? Wil Wheaton went on to become famous as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, only to have his life micromanaged and his earnings stolen. Remarkably, he's now mostly famous for being a good guy and avatar for a generation of fans.
And, of course, we lost Rob Reiner.
I hadn't watched this movie in maybe 25 years. I can't really remember the last time I saw it. But it's one I saw so often, I can make the fingerpop sound in Lollipop on the soundtrack at just the right time and jump in on some of the dialog. Y'all have your movies of your youth, and I've got mine.
Here's to remembering Reiner and all the things he brought to the screen, and one of his movies that meant a lot to me.
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