This week I watched Stand By Me, a 1986 film directed by Rob Reiner and based on The Body by Stephen King. Set in 1959, this movie follows twelve-year-olds Gordie, Chris, Vern, and Teddy as they walk along the train tracks in rural Oregon searching for the body of a missing teen boy.
Stand By Me is a movie about friendship, loss, and the special grief that comes with growing up.
Watching this movie makes me long for the boyhood I never had, one full of camping trips and misadventures with best friends. The love and friendship the boys have with each other is what makes this movie so special.
Kids living in an adult world are constantly ignored and overlooked. They feel powerless against the things they are forced to grapple with, like death or the inability of their parents to protect them from it. Gordie’s parents are too busy grieving the loss of his brother to see that their expectations are crushing him. He knows he will never be good enough to fill the hole his brother left; meanwhile, Chris feels underestimated and weighed down by his class and reputation.
Their friendship allows these kids to be seen and understood at a time when they need it most. Gordie and the boys make it clear that all they really have is each other. When you’re twelve, your friends are the only people you’ll really trust to honestly answer the most important questions, like whether or not you’re weird or if you’re a bad person.
I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?
Steven King
The final scene in Stand By Me always makes me cry. I imagine myself and my own childhood friends growing into adulthood. I think about the ways we have drifted apart and what their lives look like now. I think about who will make it out of our hometown. I wonder if they still have the fondness for me that I have for them.
I like to think that kind of connection isn’t something that can be so easily forgotten.