Everything about Stand By Me Film totally explained
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 Synopsis
Stand by Me is a
coming of age film set 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's 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 the end of the film. At the start, we see that Chris Chambers has died, but at the end we find out more about what happened. Gordie is grieving over this, and has become a writer, and we've just witnessed the story as he was writing it.
Cast
Book discrepancies
While
Stand by Me is generally faithful to the original Stephen King novella, the film makes some notable deviations from its source material. For example, the time is moved back a year from
1960 to
1959. Although both stories take place in a town called "
Castle Rock", the original Stephen King story is set in
Maine, while the film takes place in
Oregon, where it was filmed. Castle Rock locations were shot in
Brownsville, Oregon.
Parts of the story’s
timeline are altered in the film. Chris and Gordie’s conversation about his writing career and what will be different when they're in
junior high, the scene where Chris tells Gordie the truth about the milk money incident, and Gordie’s story about "Lard Ass" all take place at different moments in film. The book also features more events that occur shortly after the journey. It describes what happened when the boys came back to their homes, as well as an incident where Gordie was attacked by Ace but refused to turn him in.
Some scenes are added to or removed from the film. It has more scenes involving the older
gang than King's novella; the scenes where Ace steals Gordie’s
cap, when the gang plays “
mailbox baseball”, when they discuss Ray Brower’s body together in the
junkyard, and when they've a race together on the
highway were not in the book. The film ignores Gordie’s short story entitled
Stud City, and adds two of his
flashback scenes, in which his brother gives him a baseball cap and when he takes part in a family dinner.
There are a number of repeated elements that are added into the film, including the boys continually singing the theme song from
Have Gun — Will Travel, Vern’s comical obsession with his comb, Gordie and Chris doing "pinky swearing" when they give each other promises, and the characters giving each other "two for flinching" by softly punching each other. In addition, Gordie’s relationship with his brother is much more intense in the film, while in the novella, Denny and Gordie were not entirely close to each other.
The film includes some additional conversations between the boys that weren’t in the book, including their discussions around the
campfire, their argument over whether or not they should go back after the
leech attack, whether to cross the field as a shortcut to the Royal River, what kind of animal
Goofy is, and who would win in a faceoff between
Mighty Mouse and
Superman. Other debates are trimmed down. In the book, the boys threatened to inform
police about Milo trying to sic his dog on Gordie during the argument that arose after he called Mr. Duchamp a lunatic, and Teddy later argued for bringing Ray Brower’s body back with them.
There are some actions in the plot that are performed by different characters in the book from in the film. In the book, it was Gordie, not Chris, who wrestled Teddy off the tracks before he could attempt a train dodge, while in the book it was Chris who pulled out the
gun, but Gordie does it in the film. Also, the gang member who threatened the boys with a knife in the book was actually Jackie Mudgett, and not Ace. Some lines of dialogue are spoken by different characters. In the book, the line "...going to see a dead kid, maybe it shouldn’t be a party" was spoken by Vern, and the line "you won't mind if we check the seat of your jockey shorts for
Hershey squirts" was spoken by Teddy. In the film, both of these lines are spoken by Gordie.
The film features characters that weren’t in the book, and vice versa. For instance, in the book there were two additional boys in Gordie's "gang" named John and Marty DeSpain who were out of town during the story, but they're never mentioned in the film. In turn, the book didn’t feature the various members in the crowd during the
pie-eating contest that the film identifies.
Some of the characteristics of the people in the story are changed. For instance, both of Teddy's ears had been burned in the book, but in the film only his left one had. (The book also gives a more thorough description of the events leading up to Teddy's father being institutionalized, including said burnings). Chopper was a mongrel dog, while in the film he's a
golden retriever, the name of the
mayor who serves as the announcer during the pie-eating contest is changed from “Charbonneau” to “Grundy”, and Vern’s
nickname, "Penny" (because of the incident where Vern spends nine months looking for
pennies, and not four years as in the book), is never brought up. Gordie was also a huge
Red Sox fan in the book, and his admiration for
Ted Williams was noted. This trait is never stated in the film, in which Gordie wears a
New York Yankees cap.
Another notable difference between the book and the film is the character of the store clerk. In the book, he was a grumpy person who tried to cheat Gordie of his money twice and yelled angrily at him as he left the shop. In the film, he's a kind and sympathetic man who is curious about Gordie’s personal life, and who empathizes with Gordie over Denny’s demise, as he, himself, lost a brother during the
Korean War. In the book, Denny was in the
military at the time of his death. The film doesn't establish this, although props in Denny's room gives the idea that he was probably out of
high school and maybe even in
college when the accident took place.
Significantly, the book provides an
epilogue that kills off more than just the
protagonist's best friend. Both of the two main characters whose fates are ignored in the film meet the least distinguished of fates in King's book: Vern passes out on a
cigarette and sets a blaze, and Teddy dies when his vehicle hits a utility pole and rolls several times as he and his passengers are drinking and passing around joints; a female passenger also is fatally injured. In both the book and the film, the tragic figure is Chris Chambers. King engages in ample foreshadowing by establishing Chris as preternaturally and essentially good, the more so because of his "diamond in the rough" nature: his family is composed of
criminals, in a time and a town where the apple rarely fell far from the tree. Chris is tough and well-grown, but uses his maturity to be a peacemaker rather than a warrior. His peacemaking tendency and maturity are established repeatedly: He is throughout the book and film the voice of reason, saving his friends from both physical and emotional harm. Chris's death is an early but fitting sacrifice: in a
fast food restaurant, he instinctively steps between two men who have engaged in a knife-fight. Chris is stabbed in the throat, being granted an instant death. Gordie is the sole survivor, who lives on and writes, but without his friends. Note that in a dream sequence following the infamous leech sequence in the book, Gordie shows his ambivalence to childhood friends--envisioning his friends as grasping to his limbs and drowning him, and declaring that friends only "hold you down." The loss of his best friend Chris reminds him that he'll "never have friends like that again."
The ultimate punishment is only shown in the book: the fate of the antagonist, Ace. Rather than the quick death granted to Chris, Teddy, and Vern, Ace is seen by Gordie years later in a local bar: his sharp features softened by fat, grown old before his time. Gordie's victory is that of living well. A more detailed and graphic account of Ace Merrill's later years and subsequent death is in King's novel
Needful Things, in which Ace plays a prominent character later in his life.
Themes
Showdowns
One thematic re-occurring motif is the idea of a "showdown" between two or more characters in the film. The first brief showdown is between Chris and Ace on the sidewalk when Ace threatens to burn Chris's face while he's him in a headlock. Chris "gives" and Ace releases him. The next is when Teddy faces off against an on coming train at the beginning of the boys' trek. He says he wants to make a dramatic "train dodge," and just before it hits him, Chris grabs him and forces him out of harms way. The third showdown that happens is between Teddy, once again, and the junk yard man and his dog. They yell and call names, but when the junk yard man brings Teddy's unstable father into the picture, Teddy breaks down and starts to cry. Another showdown occurs when Ace pulls up to have a car race with the other four members of their gang. They remain neck to neck for a short period before a truck appears in the other lane coming toward Ace. Ace and two of his buddies (who seem terrified) don't change lanes, but decide to stay on the wrong side of the road and face off with the on coming truck. The other car in the race looks scared for them. Before they crash, the truck swerves off of the road, spilling all of its supplies while Ace goes on to win the race. The final showdown is between the younger gang and Ace's crowd at the body. The two groups trade harsh words before Ace pulls a knife on Chris, but is soon too skittish to use it after Gordie fires a shot in the air with Chris's gun. He then points it at Ace, which chills him and scares him away, along with his group. These are only some of the major showdowns that occur in the film. They reveal a character's certain core that brings them into a primitive state. The showdowns also symbolize the masculinity of the boys, and how they act in confrontations by themselves without their friends behind them, except for the last one.
Crying
Throughout the film, all of the younger boys cry at some point. Crying seems to show that these boys have troubled pasts, and that they're not ready to grow up yet or enter the world of middle school. They all have the common theme of being
"losers" as society calls them. Whether it's their parent's position, or another family issue, they all are pushed away, and feel alone. The crying represents the loss of their innocence so early in life and that they're "better" than what they appear to be like.
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)Further Information
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