Stand by Me is a 1986 adventure-drama film directed by Rob Reiner. The title comes from a song with the same title by Ben E. King (which plays during the closing credits) and is based on the novella The Body by Stephen King, who called it his favorite adaptation of one of his works up to that point.

Plot

Stand by Me is a coming of age film set in Castle Rock, Oregon in 1959. It portrays a journey embarked upon by four 12 year-old boys across the woodlands near their hometown to see the dead body of another boy who was close to their own age. The film is told through the recollections of the main character, Gordie Lachance, a freelance writer. It describes how his friend Vern overheard his older brother discussing the body of a missing boy after accidentally coming across it in the woods with his friend.

The lead characters go on a journey into the woods to find the body of a boy named Ray Brower, who was struck by a train while picking berries in the woods. Through the boys' misadventures and conversations, the viewer learns about each character's personality. Each of the boys, for varying reasons, lives in the shadow of their fathers and older brothers. Gordie's talent for storytelling (as illustrated by his improvised short story "Lard-Ass") pegs him as the most likely of the four to have a promising future.

The film contrasts the four main characters, who are depicted as well-meaning and relatively virtuous, with a gang of bullies led by a local hood, "Ace" Merrill.

Characters

The main characters are Gordie Lachance (Wil Wheaton), and his three friends Chris Chambers (River Phoenix), Teddy Duchamp (Corey Feldman), and Vern Tessio (Jerry O'Connell), all 12 years old.

Each has a physical and/or emotional burden. Chris is from a family of criminals and alcoholics and, despite his intelligence and desire to break the generational curse, he is usually stereotyped accordingly. Teddy is an eccentric and physically deformed after his mentally-unstable father (whom Teddy sees as a war hero who "stormed the beach at Normandy") held his ear to a stove and nearly burned it off, thus forcing him to wear a hearing aid. Vern, overweight and timid, is easily scared, and thus often picked on. Gordie is a quiet, bookish boy with a penchant for telling stories, rejected by his father following the death of his football-star older brother Dennis "Denny" Lachance (John Cusack) in an automobile accident. The story is narrated by the adult Gordie (Richard Dreyfuss), who makes brief appearances at the beginning and end of the film.

Cast

• Wil Wheaton as Gordie Lachance
• River Phoenix as Chris Chambers
• Corey Feldman as Teddy Duchamp
• Jerry O'Connell as Vern Tessio
• Kiefer Sutherland as John "Ace" Merrill
• Casey Siemaszko as Billy Tessio
• Gary Riley as Charlie Hogan
• Bradley Gregg as Richard "Eyeball" Chambers
• John Cusack as Denny Lachance
• Marshall Bell as Mr. Lachance
• Frances Lee McCain as Mrs. Lachance
• Bruce Kirby as Mr. Quidacioluo
• Scott Beach as Mayor Grundy
• Richard Dreyfuss as Gordie as an Adult/The Writer

Award nominations

• Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama
• Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay (Raynold Gideon & Bruce A. Evans)
• WGA Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Raynold Gideon & Bruce A. Evans)
• Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Rob Reiner)
• Golden Globe Award for Best Director (Rob Reiner)

External links

• ''Stand by Me'' filming locations from cinema-astoria.com
• Brownsville, Oregon ''Stand by Me'' film locations from Brownsville Chamber of Commerce

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