Stand By Me
REVIEW
The movie “Stand By Me” is simply a blanket of comfort, a movie to wrap myself up in on a summer day when I just feel like staying indoors, grabbing a root beer and some popcorn, sinking into my sofa and putting on a classic. Watching this movie has become a tradition in my life and summer doesn’t officially begin until I spend an afternoon in the small town of Castle Rock. Still to this day, every time I watch this movie, I am brought back to a time when summer was the season that ruled all seasons and truly meant freedom, adventure and lazy afternoons spent with my closest childhood friends.
Where did those days go? How have things changed so much? For a brief hour and a half I am transported back to my 12-year-old self and am given a quick glimpse back to a time when things just seemed a little lighter, a little easier - I laughed a little harder and a lot longer. Now hours blend into days, days into weeks, weeks into months. Sometimes I wish things could just slow down a little bit. Watching this movie I am able to reminisce about the time in my life when summer hours just seemed to slowly melt away like a popsicle on the sidewalk in July and I lived each day so fully that the setting sun was the only thing to bring a stop to fun times that I wish could have last forever.
For those of you who have not seen this movie - The story, set in 1959, follows four boys from a small town in Oregon called Castle Rock who are on an adventure to find the body of a dead boy. The premise alone sounds so simple yet so intriguing. We don’t get many movies like this nowadays. A movie with a simple story told well. A story with great characters, good dialogue, beautiful scenery and a perfect soundtrack. It would be nice to get back to a time when the studios put money behind stories like this but at the same time this is also the reason “Stand By Me” is so special… there is not much else like it.
What really makes this movie work for me is that we are taken back to a time in America’s history that really gets romanticized and for good reason. The 50’s just seem like a great time to have been a kid. A time before cell phones, video games, the internet or social media. A simpler time. Time spent outdoors finding adventures to fill your long summer days. The music back then just seemed to have a lightness to it that fit the setting of innocence and simplicity. This movie really captures how great it must have been to be a kid living in a small town in America during this era.
After watching this movie I just feel good. I spend the rest of my day just kind of floating along. I am my 12-year-old self just kicking a pinecone down the street on my way home from my friends. I am in the moment and not so educated on the ways of the adult world. That is why I will always love this movie cause for this briefest of moments, I am reminded of the friends I grew up with and how they will always hold the shared memories of some of the best times of my life. “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”
