Character Analysis Of Rob Reiner's 'Stand By Mecelebrates'

It's a scorching summer day, and four neighborhood boys are trying to beat the heat by lounging in the shade near a junkyard's water pump with a refreshing drink. As they cool off, they listlessly toss little rocks into an old tin can a few feet away, and fill the empty air with idle speculation over whether or not Mickey Mouse Club cast member Annette Funicello has started to develop breasts. Enjoying this brief interlude of nothingness, one boy happily sighs: "This is a really good time." The dated specifics of this scene root it in its setting of Labor Day weekend in 1959, but the not-so-innocent innocence of these pint-size hooligans is eternal.
Rob Reiner's 1986 film Stand by Mecelebrates its 30th anniversary today, and though it took
Goonies never say die; this quartet is stuck in a vortex of abuse and mistreatment, usually coming from a parent to their child. The film tacitly links Teddy's volatile behavior to his fraught relationship with his father, a WWII vet who mutilated his boy's ear during what we're led to understand is a post-traumatic fit. (More touching still, Teddy flips into defensive mad-dog mode when a trashmonger dares to call his father a "loony.") Chris comes from a family full of crooks and booze-hounds, and Gordie himself wrestles with profound survivor's guilt over the death of his brother (John Cusack) while his grief-stricken parents have completely disengaged from the world around them.But even as they're beset on all sides by sadness and tragedy, they still live the way kids live. Reiner brings a nuance to the boys and faithfully captures the distinctive ways that these odd pubescent creatures interact with one another. Bruce Evans and Raynold Gideon's script nails the wandering-mind banter sessions so common among barely pubescent young men, as they tool on one another in a gesture of affection and fraternity. The friends shoot the breeze about girls (all posturing, naturally) and entertain one another by recounting Castle Rock apocrypha, as in the extended tangent about vengeful projectile-vomiter Lardass Hogan. The director would put his fondness for the oral tradition of storytelling on full display in The Princess Bride one year later, but in Stand by Me, tall tales help add shading to a specific