I’m sure that we’ve all had our friendships that seemed born from unlikely scenarios, but few have come together like the kids aka: The Losers Club from Stephen King’s IT.
One of my favorite scenes from the remake as well as the original is where, through standing up to a new kid being bullied, they forge a new friendship. Let’s get into the scene, shall we?
Now, as always, I include the parts from the script that are detrimental to the scene but in this one – I’ve omitted the actual script bits of the bullying, despite the fact a shot of Pennywise is in it. This is because it’s a pretty brutal moment and I know there’s little to be gleaned in those gruesome details. I encourage everyone to go check out the remake for sure as it’s really very well done and not nearly as long as the original (which was made for TV) and encapsulates the book rather well.
At this point, the ‘Loser’ kids have already witnessed an intense group hallucination or haunting from Pennywise that took place at Beverly’s house and helped her, once she finally came to them to explain her fear, and aided in cleaning up the mess to keep her out of trouble. It was a rather peculiar bonding moment for sure but it’s hard enough being friends with a group of boys at that age — but allowing yourself to trust them to believe you and help you through trauma is rather heartwarming. Not once do they struggle with it and all of them come together to make sure she feels safer than the day before.
An interesting thing to take note is what brings them together in the first place: Trust. They know that the stories they have about Pennywise and their mutual dealings with the entity that is haunting them is something nobody would truly believe. Yet, they believe one another. Having those people that will have your back and listen to you and your truth is what makes friendships so important. The fact these kids give something so very mature to one another like valuable friendship means that they have endeared themselves to one another far sooner than most kids learn to give those kinds of attachments.
In this bit, after seeing that Mike is obviously in trouble by the bullying kids, Bill lets the others know they should go help. This is important to the scene, as I feel it shows Bill as being the moral leader of the group. He has been through the hardest loss and dealt with trauma through being teased by the entity that his brother may not be gone. His own personal fears and pain have never shaken him from helping others and sometimes he has to be the one to shake the group out of their own feelings and into what’s best for others. There’s nothing wrong with the other kids for not rushing to help or aid Mike, mind you, because they are kids. Kids who are fearful and learning a lot through adolescence about what scares them, how to stand up for it and the fact they can’t always depend on adults to believe or aid them. Bill reminds them that Mike and the situation he is in could literally be any one of them and the right thing to do is to stand up and help him.
This was such a perfect moment to witness as it showed these kids, who coined themselves as The Losers Club, were standing up and showing they were more heroes than losers. It’s a moment that I think all of us have had, whether solo or alongside our friends, maybe even our family. The moment of standing up for someone or something that cannot hoist themselves up on their own is a powerful one and it’s in those illuminating times that we see who we truly are. We are good.
You know how on social media you can sometimes see people sharing thoughts and prayers, giving hot takes about how things should REALLY work but they rarely practice said thing? Those times where people have such huge stands to make, showing how great they are because they think a good thing and will stand up on Twitter about the bad guys and situations — it feels so self-indulgent sometimes. Rarely are we put into real life positions, to our face, where we have to be held accountable for those lofty feelings and words. When we are, however, we get to truly find out what we’re made of. In this moment, Bill and the other Losers have finally come to terms with standing up for Mike. It is not an afterthought now and as Richie screams to sound off the start of the Rock War, we’re given a glimpse into the actual real world courage these kids have. Calling themselves ‘The Losers Club’ is a complete misnomer because there is nothing ‘loser’ about any of these kids.
And here the scene ends and the confrontation has ceased with Mike being guided beneath the wing of Bill and the rest of the Losers Club. I think this scene shows so much and it truly is the backbone of what the movie is about. It’s about relationships and leaning into your friends during their darkest moments, even if it may not feel like you can carry that weight. It’s about sometimes stepping away from shielding yourself from trouble in order to do the right thing. Heck, you may just make a friend for life out of it.
