“It was the summer of 1959, a long time ago. But only if you measure it in terms of years.” Richard Dreyfuss is desolate-looking in a truck parked up somewhere pastoral and private. On the seat beside him is a newspaper with a violent front page headline.
Stand By Me is a film steeped in nostalgia for a time full of pleasures and sorrows. Rob Reiner’s visual language heightens the emotions so that we feel everything that 12-year-old Gordy, Chris, Teddy and Vern feel as they set off to find a dead body. Every episode in their odyssey feels more vivid than life itself. In retrospect, these were halcyon days, and now they seem more unreachable than ever because Gordy, now a grownup novelist, has read some terrible news. Per the 4 September 1985 edition of The Oregonian, “Attorney Christopher Chambers Fatally Stabbed In Restaurant“.
Rob Reiner – son of comedian Carl – was an actor before he became a director and is best known for a particularly hot streak of movies: This is Spinal Tap (1984) , Stand By Me (1986), The Princess Bride (1987), When Harry Met Sally (1989), Misery (1990) and A Few Good Men (1992). As Jim Hemphill wrote in his tender, astute tribute for IndieWire, Reiner was “weirdly both widely celebrated and a bit underrated”. A cross-genre versatility meant that he was not an easily branded auteur. He made emotionally shrewd choices that served a story and brought out all the good and truth there was to find within collaborators.
His most famous films had greater recognition than his own name did. At least they did until 14 December 2025 when the desperately tragic circumstances of his own death generated front page headlines across the world. As anyone reading this almost certainly knows by now, he and wife Michele were found stabbed to death in their LA home. Their 32-year-old son Nick has since been charged with double murder.
Heartbroken tributes from an eclectic cross-section of public figures evoked a man who cultivated lasting friendships across show business and politics. For, although he remained an active and beloved figure in Hollywood after his pinnacle, cropping up in cameos in everything from The Wolf of Wall Street to The Bear he also directed considerable resources towards activism for Democratic causes. He was part of a successful campaign to overturn the ban on gay marriage in California and got a tax passed on tobacco products that was used to fund early childhood development centres.
The enemies a man makes can be equally revealing of character. Not 24 hours after news of the double murder, the US President launched an execrable posthumous battle with Reiner’s memory, catalysing a deep bench of those compelled to speak publicly and warmly in his name. Even staunch Republican James Woods had this to say: “I judge people by how they treat me and Rob Reiner was a godsend in my life.”
There were suddenly a lot of dark rabbit holes to go down that had little to do with his movies, although the moment I read about Reiner’s death, Stand By Me rose up like a melody that has never gone away. The nostalgia it depicts blurred with the nostalgia it conjures for the time when I first watched it.
***
