I had watched the coming-of-age weepie over and over growing up so it was an overwhelming experience to sit down with its creator and see it again. It was a magical day and he was just as warm-hearted as his movie
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ob Reiner beam as he greets me. “You’ve seen Stand By Me 100 times?” he asks. I nod sheepishly. “Then you probably know it better than I do.” It’s August 2006, 20 years after Reiner’s coming-of-age weepie was first released, and I’m sitting in his office at Castle Rock Entertainment, the LA-based production company he co-launched in 1987. On the walls hang posters of Reiner’s beloved movies – This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, Misery, A Few Good Men – but our attention is fixed on a modest TV as Stand By Me begins.
I’m here in Beverly Hills to write an anniversary article for a film magazine, but it’s also a pinch-me moment. As a teen, I’d watched Stand By Me on loop, identifying with the four protagonists – fragile, wannabe-writer Gordie (Wil Wheaton), tough-but-sensitive Chris (River Phoenix), wildcard joker Teddy (Corey Feldman) and put-upon Vern (Jerry O’Connell) – as they share their grief, insecurities and mistrust of adults.
OK, I never hiked up miles of railway track to eyeball a dead body, but my friends were everything to me, plugging the ragged hole left by my parents’ divorce. Like Gordie, I felt lost at home, and like Chris, I was looked down upon because, in my village in the 80s, families did not break up. But my closest circle of pals made everything all right. Together we watched Stand By Me, and like the kids in the film, we never stopped with the banter but could also, when needed, put an arm around each other’s shoulders.
