Stand By Me

Impressions before seeing it
After briefly namedropping it in my post on Super 8, this conveniently came on TV and I decided to watch it since it has become one of those classics that everybody knows.

How was it?
"I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?"

That's the closing line from the movie, and I think it sums it up nicely. Stand By Me is a road trip movie - albeit one without a vehicle, or a road - and like all good road trip movies, it explores the bond formed during the big journey. I think what that closing line, and the movie, uncovers is the strength of childhood friendships. The characters were already friends at the beginning of the movie, yes, but 12 years old is the perfect age for an adventure because you're young enough to have no responsibilities, and just old enough to be developing some adequate maturity, intelligence, and life experience, yet again still young enough that you're not too old to just have some silly fun along the way. The boys do fight and argue on plenty of occasions, as anyone will when forced to spend too much time together, but the significant thing to note is that they each have their scene in the film where they break down, they reach their emotional breaking point, and the others are right there to help them out of it. I don't feel that this would have happened if someone broke down at the beginning of the movie. It feels like they were still kids at that point, and this journey to see a dead body is their first real activity as adults. That kind of experience (and the sobering effect of seeing a real dead body up close) tends to bring people closer together, and I think it created a loyalty that probably wasn't there before they departed. It is also interesting to note that everyone in the movie who is older than the four main boys is essentially a douchebag - with the exception of Gordie's older brother (John Cusack), though he is dead and only seen in flashbacks, so he doesn't really count. I think this was a deliberate choice to accentuate the friendships and favour youth for nostalgia's sake, though it could also be seen as Gordie's potentially biased interpretations of these people and/or adulthood in general.

You could even say that this movie is Lord of the Rings with a cast of kids. You have your group walking a long distance with a set destination and end goal in mind, and a group of villains traveling to the same place with a more sinister version of that goal in mind, and a confrontation when they get there. Or maybe I'm just comparing them because they're both movies about walking.

Recommendation
I am always fond of movies where a group of kids are going on an adventure that is bigger than them, and as a result they have to act more mature than they are. I would put Stand By Me with Super 8 and The Goonies and The Sandlot (not an adventure movie per se, but it is about a group of kids working together on a specific goal) as a movie in that category that fascinates me. Doesn't hurt that it's a road trip movie, either.