Castle Rock, ME, 1959
Columbia Pictures
The four adolescents in question are funny and confident — and deeply wounded. There’s Teddy, and then there’s the awkward and fearful Vern (Jerry O’Connell), the intelligent and soulful Chris (River Phoenix), and the creative and observant Gordie (Wil Wheaton). Gordie, also the film’s narrator (Richard Dreyfuss narrates as the adult version of the character), has become a ghost in his own home after the death of his older brother Denny (John Cusack in flashbacks). Denny was a celebrated local football star. Gordie, in comparison, couldn’t help but be a disappointment. The boys have all just reached the age when their parents are at peace with not paying any attention to them. Chris mentions that his father beats him regularly, and Teddy’s father was recently committed to an asylum.
The neglect, they find, also avails them the freedom to arrange a grand quest for what is essentially the last summer of their childhoods. Vern reveals that a local boy, Ray Brower, was recently hit by a train and killed, and his body has remained by train tracks miles and miles away. The four boys, thinking it would be intense and cool — and that discovering a missing kid would get them on TV — arrange a multiple-day hike, just the four of them, complete with bedrolls and provisions, to go see Ray. On their trip, with the solitude to think and converse, each of the boys begins to face their own inner pain. Teddy breaks down when a local junkyard owner uses the word “loony” is describe his father. Chris breaks down when he acknowledges that his family’s bad reputation left him stained (one of Chris’ teachers even framed Chris for a small robbery). Gordie breaks down when he talks about his dead brother and the ensuing neglect. And poor Vern merely looks death in the face.
Columbia Pictures
By Witney Seibold/Aug. 31, 2022 5:04 pm EST
Castle Rock, ME, 1959
The four adolescents in question are funny and confident — and deeply wounded. There’s Teddy, and then there’s the awkward and fearful Vern (Jerry O’Connell), the intelligent and soulful Chris (River Phoenix), and the creative and observant Gordie (Wil Wheaton). Gordie, also the film’s narrator (Richard Dreyfuss narrates as the adult version of the character), has become a ghost in his own home after the death of his older brother Denny (John Cusack in flashbacks). Denny was a celebrated local football star. Gordie, in comparison, couldn’t help but be a disappointment. The boys have all just reached the age when their parents are at peace with not paying any attention to them. Chris mentions that his father beats him regularly, and Teddy’s father was recently committed to an asylum.
The neglect, they find, also avails them the freedom to arrange a grand quest for what is essentially the last summer of their childhoods. Vern reveals that a local boy, Ray Brower, was recently hit by a train and killed, and his body has remained by train tracks miles and miles away. The four boys, thinking it would be intense and cool — and that discovering a missing kid would get them on TV — arrange a multiple-day hike, just the four of them, complete with bedrolls and provisions, to go see Ray. On their trip, with the solitude to think and converse, each of the boys begins to face their own inner pain. Teddy breaks down when a local junkyard owner uses the word “loony” is describe his father. Chris breaks down when he acknowledges that his family’s bad reputation left him stained (one of Chris’ teachers even framed Chris for a small robbery). Gordie breaks down when he talks about his dead brother and the ensuing neglect. And poor Vern merely looks death in the face.
The neglect, they find, also avails them the freedom to arrange a grand quest for what is essentially the last summer of their childhoods. Vern reveals that a local boy, Ray Brower, was recently hit by a train and killed, and his body has remained by train tracks miles and miles away. The four boys, thinking it would be intense and cool — and that discovering a missing kid would get them on TV — arrange a multiple-day hike, just the four of them, complete with bedrolls and provisions, to go see Ray.
On their trip, with the solitude to think and converse, each of the boys begins to face their own inner pain. Teddy breaks down when a local junkyard owner uses the word “loony” is describe his father. Chris breaks down when he acknowledges that his family’s bad reputation left him stained (one of Chris’ teachers even framed Chris for a small robbery). Gordie breaks down when he talks about his dead brother and the ensuing neglect. And poor Vern merely looks death in the face.
Death is cool, right?
Late in the film, when Gordie puts his finger on the trigger, he’s taking death into his own hands. He is taking control of the violence that, he now sees openly, is a big part of growing up in the 1950s.
Overcoming
While there is a dark catharsis in staring death in its bloodied face — “The kid wasn’t sick, the kid wasn’t sleeping, the kid was dead” — Gordie, Vern, Teddy, and Chris also realize that true maturity means separating mere mortality from the urge to cause it. The world constantly threatens and hurts these four boys. They manage to come out on the other side without having been stained; none of them are poised to become an abuser themselves.
When the four boys part at the end of their quest — the sun setting on the summer — they all know everything has changed. With their childhoods at an end, they are now destined to drift apart, to find their own identities outside the safe bubble of youth. And, as the 1960s begin, revolution is set to begin in the United States. The darkness hiding in postwar America is about to be exposed, and the nation was to enter uneasy adolescence. We can long for childhood, but we also must acknowledge when that childhood is not the rosiest thing. Something is lost, but something else will always be gained.
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”
