This is a coming of age movie from the pen of Stephen King was released in 1986 and was a great success with a budget of $8m they recouped $52.3m from the box-office. This success was met with the critics as well and even the tri-critics have scores much higher than me with IMDb for them giving this a very generous 8.1/10 and Rotten Tomatoes even more so with a 91%. This movie starred a very young cast of Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell & Kiefer Sutherland. Which may well of kicked off some careers as well. This maybe a good point to move to the plot.
This follows one boy in particular within a group of four boys. It begins with the fully grown up version of him (Geordie) writing an autobiography so you get to understand that he has grown up and remembering about the first time he saw a dead body back when he was 12 years old. So the film jumps back to 1959 and you see Geordie aged 12 and largely ignored by his parents, due to the death of his older brother. Geordie’s friends are Chris, Teddy and Vern who when looking for money beneath his parent’s porch Vern overhears his older brother Billy talking with friends. Billy says that he saw a missing boy named Ray Brower outside of town near train tracks and the River dead. Although Billy doesn't want to report it because here it doesn’t want the attention of the authorities having stolen a car recently. Chris steals his father's gun and Jordy runs into the local hoodlum who is called ace (John Merrill) and Chris’ older brother Richard ‘eyeball’ Chambers threatens Chris with a lit cigarette and also steals Geordie’s Yankees cap which was a gift from his older brother. Leaving the bullies behind the four decide that they're going to go and find the dead boy and tell their parents suitable lies and head off to find the dead body. They follow the railway line and get into various different adventures but there is also time for the four to sit and chat together where their characters really develop. They get chased across a bride with a train coming they have a run in with the bullies and a large dog. Until they must make up their minds on actually finding a body tackling the bullies and finishes with a return to the author with a poignant paragraph explaining what happened to each of his friends from when he was 12.
I always remember, describing this film as ‘It’ but without the horror element. There are very similar links to both stories which it being very much a coming of age story. With being very young and being around friends and realising what friendship meant to you when you were a kid. This comes shining through, very clearly in both stories. The book of ‘It’ at the time of reading and I would probably say it still today is that it is greatest book I’ve read ever. Now I admit that there are parts that go on and on and there are elements that are simply not needed for the story but it's still feels very epic. When I finish the book it feels great it's very clever the way it jumps between ‘now’ which was probably in the mid 80s then going back to the 60s. Where this film is very much similar in terms of is very looking back at childhood and how things were. This is a reflection of how kids and friendships were and you don't fully appreciate those friendships until it's gone and you're too old. You kind of think back and you go - you know what? We were having the time of our lives doing what the hell we wanted when we wanted and it was fantastic. This really comes across in this film it's a lovely film full of heart, not necessary pulling punches it gets to you and it gets you in a good way. Which you wouldn't expect anything else from Stephen King to be fair and it's a good film and a well-loved at that. The reason for that love is because it's done very well and poignant in a very reflective kind of way. It says appreciate today because you may not realise how good today is until tomorrow is here and you want yesterday back. That's why it's very well liked if you haven't seen it you have missed out and I would recommend this to anyone.
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