Another clear
influence on Stranger Things, Rob
Reiner’s Stand by Me (1986) portrays
American kids from a lost era in which they could go on an adventure away from
home. Nowadays if children go missing for more than an hour parents try to
locate them using cell phone apps, but in the story written by Stephen King
four boys in 1959 Oregon go walking in the woods during a long weekend to look
for, of all things, a dead body. Their lives are sometimes at risk, they have
no way of communicating with their parents, but they will definitely have a
story to remember for the rest of their lives.
For many North
Americans adults this movie fondly reminded them of a time in their childhood
despite the inherent danger. Not so for me since, first of all, there was no time
in my childhood when I could possibly go out of the house for more than three
hours without my mom getting in her car to go look for me. The there is the
fact that I spent a good chunk of my childhood living in Chile and Peru, and in
Peru our house was surrounded by a brick wall with electric wires on top. Leaving
the house without telling anyone where you were going was not recommended
unless you wanted to get mugged, held at gunpoint, or in some cases kidnapped,
so my childhood was very different from that of the characters in Stand by Me.
That being said I
still enjoyed this movie since it features a group of young actors whose work I
admire today. Playing bookish Gordie Lachance is Will Wheaton who is known to
many for his work in Star Trek and
nowadays for playing board games on YouTube. Joker Teddy Duchamp is played by
Corey Feldman who was in two other 80s classics, The Goonies and The Lost Boys.
The shy and overweight Vern Tessio is played by Jerry O’Connell, who lost the
weight and went on to star in tons of TV shows. Lastly and sadly, in the role
of Chris Chambers is River Phoenix who died of a drug overdose in 1993. In
addition to this classic, I have seen him over and over again play young
Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the
Last Crusade.
It is a very
solid cast and another reason why this movie works is the way their characters
interact with each other. When the four friends hear a young boy is missing and
presumed dead they decide to go looking for him in the hopes of becoming local
heroes. Despite the fact that on their journey they are nearly hit by a train,
get covered in leeches while wading through a river and get chased by a dog at
a junkyard these kids are still having the time of their life because they are
out there together.
When they are not
busy surviving the wilderness they take time to talk about their home lives,
which for some of them are quite disturbing, and ponder about what the future
might hold for them. Of course they also try to have fun, such as when Gordie
tells the story of Davie “Lard-Ass” Hogan, an overweight boy who was constantly
teased and had his revenge at a pie-eating contest. It involves the greatest
amount of vomit since Mr. Creosote in Monty
Python’s The Meaning of Life.
Stand by Me is also proof that Stephen King can write great
stories that are set in the real world, where the only scary thing is growing
old and losing touch with old friends. The world depicted in this movie is
probably lost forever since most kids today would prefer to spend their evenings
home and binge watch Stranger Things rather
than go out on an actual adventure. The same goes for me as an adult, but I still
thoroughly enjoyed the story and seeing four young actors before their careers
took off or in one case came to an abrupt end.
Comments
Post a Comment