Stand by Me: A Journey of Self-discovery for All

I can't say that I am nostalgic for the 80s. I was only 7 when the decade ended. I spent much of my time during those years playing with Care Bears, reading Grover Goes to School and peeing in my pants. So I really shouldn't have been watching Stand by Me when it was released in 1986. I was too young.

I remember my brother obsessively watching the movie when it came out on videotape. I'm not sure how old I was exactly when he got the movie on Beta, but it couldn't have been much later than 1986. He was 11 at the time of its theatrical release and I was 4. It wasn't the gruesome scene at the end of Stand by Me that scarred me, although I'm sure it didn't help. No, the scene that haunted me for years and years, the scene that has kept me from watching the movie as a "grown-ass adult"* was the scene where people are vomiting all over the place. I don't remember why or how this related to the actual story, but this scene messed me up pretty bad. You see, as a child (and a little bit as an adult) I had this extremely bizarre fear of vomit. I understand that no one really enjoys it (actually my brother once claimed to). But I was scared of it. The fear of doing it myself or seeing other people do it has kept me from doing many things in my life: riding roller coasters, drinking alcohol, taking recreational drugs, sailing on the open sea and getting pregnant. But I am not here to discuss my debilitating case of Emetophobia. I have decided to take my readers on a journey. I will conquer my fear and watch Stand By Me all the way through. As a grown-ass adult:

"My God...What is Goofy?" ponders 12-year-old Vern Tessio (a much younger and plumper Jerry O'Connell) as he as his friends sit around a campfire one night, preparing to get some rest. The next day they will continue their journey searching for the dead body Vern heard about as he eavesdropped on his older brother Billy a few days before. It is 1959 in Castle Rock, Oregon and Vern and his three friends Gordie LaChance (Wil Wheaton), Chris Chambers (a stunningly gorgeous River Phoenix) and Teddy Duchamp (Corey Feldman) are spending the summer together before junior high starts in the fall. The question about Goofy's identity came about when Gordie made the excellent point that Pluto, Mickey Mouse's loyal dog, couldn't possibly be of the same species as Goofy, who drives a car and appears to own a house. Why is it that one dog is a pet and the other is able to earn an income? Sadly, the answer never comes to fruitation. But I am told that this has nothing to do with the story line and to just forget about it.

Before I proceed with my review, let me update this by saying that the vomiting scene wasn't as horrible or disturbing as I remembered it. Within the context of the story, this scene was a story that Gordie had written entitled "Lard-Ass". His friends had asked him to tell them a story and "Lard-Ass" was the one that was told. It was a story of an overweight child who had constantly been berated and teased by everyone in his town. He decided to take his revenge during a pie eating contest. The contest ends with the protagonist vomiting blueberry pie on his fellow contestants which in return causes everyone else, including spectators of the contest, to vomit on each other. Hence, his revenge is final.

But puke and questionable cartoon characters aside, Stand By Me ended up being right up my alley. I thrive on coming of age stories that involve anything disturbing or out of the ordinary.
Adolescence is a fascinating time in a person's life. Hundreds of years ago (and still in many cultures) this time is not available to be explored. Adulthood starts relatively early on. In the U.S. and many other countries it is acceptable to explore, learn and drive our parents to complete madness during this stage. For a 12-year-old, the thought of finding a dead body may be intriguing. Not because the kids are cold or sadistic, but because they most likely have never seen one and don't completely understand it. The search for this body (the body of fellow adolescent Ray Brower who was hit by a train while picking berries) is a turning point in each boy's life. Most in particular Gordy, who is still grieving the loss of his older brother Denny (John Cusack). The narrative is told by an adult Gordie (Richard Dreyfuss) who is reminiscing over this summer after finding out that Chris Chambers (who worked his way from a troubled family into a lawyer) has been killed while trying to break up a fight between two strangers. The friendship between Chris and Gordie is portrayed well by the two youngsters. Chris is highly intelligent and misunderstood. His family and home life is filled with criminality and alcoholism, and Chris is self-aware enough to know that this is not how he wants to live his life, even though he is seen as a bad seed in the neighborhood for allegedly stealing milk money at school. Chris makes Gordie realize that wanting to be a writer doesn't make him any less of a man, which is something Gordie thinks his father believes. Gordie's brother was a star athlete and the apple of his father's eye.

The friendship between Gordie and Chris is central. Though we touch on the fact that Teddy has a mentally unstable World War II veteran father who burned his son's ear on the kitchen stove, and we can see Vern's timidity and self-consciousness, they are an afterthought to Gordie and Chris' story. There's also Kiefer Sutherland who portrays Ace Merrill, the town bully and leader of a neighborhood gang called the Cobras. Kiefer quickly lost my empathy when he stole Gordie's Yankee's cap right off of his head. The cap had been given to Gordie by his late brother. Thank god Sutherland has Jack Bauer to redeem all of these bully roles.

Even though I myself cannot be nostalgic for the 80s, Stand By Me is a great nostalgia movie for any generation. It seems that even when we have gone through the most horrible of circumstances during these key years, we always look back fondly. Maybe we're just realizing how lucky we are to have gotten through them.

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*My dear friend Lindsey once described herself as this when explaining why she couldn't understand adults who take interest in things such as Hello Kitty and over-sized Disney sweatshirts.