Stand by Me ***** (1986, Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Kiefer Sutherland) – Classic Movie Review 396

Director Rob Reiner’s 1986 version of Stephen King’s rites-of-passage tale, The Body, is a very engaging, warm-hearted, appealing retro-style movie.

River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell star as Fifties small-town kids who trek to the Oregon wilds to look for the missing body of a local teenage boy – found by a gang of older boys. Along the way, rough lad Chris Chambers (Phoenix), sensitive Gordie Lachance (Wheaton), flamboyant Teddy Duchamp (Feldman) and the tubby, easily scared Vern Tessio (O’Connell) smoke, swear and tell tall tales.

Thanks to Reiner’s crafted direction and a well-honed screenplay by Raynold Gideon and Bruce A Evans and the skill and charisma of the young actors, this is a beautifully observed, attractively sentimental and winningly played movie.

If you want to quibble, you could say it is just a slight touch thin and inconsequential, and also slightly marred by many anachronistic four-letter words. But none of that matters. Stand by Me is a lovely film, packed with tasty humour, eerie suspense and sweet nostalgia. It is certainly one that Phoenix will always be remembered for.

Richard Dreyfuss narrates the story as ‘The Writer’, Stephen King’s part-autobiographical character here. Kiefer Sutherland, Casey Siemaszko, John Cusack, Gary Riley, Bradley Gregg and Jason Oliver are also in the cast.

King is very much in his wistful, nostalgic mode, seen again to advantage in Hearts in Atlantis (2001). Both King’s novella and the film are set in the town of Castle Rock, but in the book that is his usual setting of Maine and in the film it is Oregon. Reiner borrowed the name for his production company.

Among the golden oldies on the soundtrack, Ben E King sings the splendid old Jerry Lieber-Mike Stoller hit Stand by Me.

Reiner went on to film King’s book Misery in 1990 and score another notable success.

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 396

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