Is there anything better than a 16-year-old who’s read just enough books to be really irritating? This question brought on by an anecdote from Josh Brolin this week, who’s promoting his new memoir From Under The Truck. Reflecting on his time making The Goonies—his breakout film role, which essentially transformed his entire life—Brolin told People a story about approaching Steven Spielberg, who provided the story for the 1985 movie about some ideas he had about his character, Brand.
Addressing Spielberg (who, in 1985, wasn’t quite “Oscar-winner Steven Spielberg,” but was still, y’know, Steven Spielberg), Brolin rattled off this very 16-year-old line of analysis about the deep psychosexual drama underpinning The Goonies, which was written by Chris Columbus and directed by Richard Donner: “I think [my character] Brandon is freaking out, and the tunnels represent the inside of his mother’s womb, and he’s trying to cut that umbilical cord.” To which Spielberg responded exactly as one should in this moment: “Yeah, just act.”
To be fair, Brolin makes it clear that Spielberg (who also told him “Just say what’s on the page”) “Wasn’t being an asshole, he was right.” Honestly, we just really get a kick out of a 40-year-old Spielberg fielding this line from a 16-year-old kid and then swiftly shutting him down; Brolin, for his part, says he had an amazing time on The Goonies, not least of which because he want from crashing on his dad’s couch to being working actor, kicking off what’s now been a nearly four-decade film career. (Also, he still has a bit of that kid in him, as best as we can tell; this is the guy who writes and publishes books of poetry about his Dune co-stars written during his downtime from the movie.) Anyway, next time you’re watching The Goonies and they’re down at the bottom of the wishing well, try contemplating how it relates to Mikey and Brand’s mom’s uterus; you might get a whole new appreciation for the movie. (And that’s even before we get into the obvious Oedipal subtext of the Fratelli family hierarchy, the sado-masochistic overtones of Chunk’s forced performance of the Truffle Shuffle, the Freudian implications of Data’s crotch-seeking Pincers Of Power…)
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