"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."
"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. Stand by Me means more to me than any of my other films' Rob Reiner with River Phoenix on the set of Stand By Me. Photograph: PictureLux/The Hollywood Archive/Alamy We start to watch the film. Gordie feels so disconnected, says Reiner as the slight, doe-eyed boy endures a conversation with his father."
Rob Reiner greets a visitor in his Castle Rock Entertainment office and begins a twenty-year anniversary screening of Stand By Me in August 2006. Posters of Reiner's celebrated films hang on the walls while attention focuses on a modest TV playing the film. A visitor recounts watching Stand By Me repeatedly as a teenager and identifying with its four protagonists—Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern—who share grief, insecurities, and mistrust of adults. Close friends provided emotional refuge after parental divorce, echoing the film's theme of friendship as vital support. Reiner highlights Gordie's disconnection and the belief that his father does not love him, and he references his own father, Carl Reiner.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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