Stand by Me review – Rob Reiner’s nostalgic look at friendship and the loss of innocence still grips tight

Review Stand by Me review – Rob Reiner’s nostalgic look at friendship and the loss of innocence still grips tight The 40th anniversary re-release of the coming-of-age drama about four boys on a quest to see a dead body is a masterclass in directing, storytelling and acting R ob Reiner’s film, adapted by screenwriters Raynold Gideon and Bruce Evans from Stephen King’s novella The Body, transformed King’s story into a glorious, mainstream American classic like something by Mark Twain. The film was released in 1986; since 1993 its added poignancy had resided in the fact that one of its actors, River Phoenix , died of a drug overdose. But now there is a terrible new layer of sadness superimposed on the film’s themes of innocence and death: the murder in 2025 of Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner. One hot summer day in the late 50s, remembered in flashback with narrative voiceover, four boys go on what amounts to a secret, secular pilgrimage in search of the corpse of a missing kid their own age rumoured to lie next to some distant railway tracks, having been hit by a train. The resulting adventure – bizarre, mysterious and moving – is about lost youth and the recovery of innocence through writing and memory. It is also one of those vanishingly rare films where child actors have to carry almost the entire drama. A gang of four chipmunk-faced boys live in the fictional Oregon small town of Castle Rock; they are all 12 years old and given to roaming endlessly through the great outdoors as children did in that foreign country of the past. They are led by the tough Chris (River Phoenix); there are also the bespectacled Teddy (Corey Feldman), whose ear has been burnt from being held to the stove by his abusive dad who is experiencing wartime PTSD, and clumsy Vern (Jerry O’Connell). Most importantly there is the quieter and more thoughtful Gordie (Wil Wheaton), a would-be writer who tells us the story looking back, traumatised by the accidental death of his elder brothe...