Well, I do, anyway.   It's time for some unabashed emotional expression.  The second scene here (pages 3&4) is by request, but I added the first one (pages 1&2) just because I thought it was interesting and fun. Elijah was still pretty young here, and everything I say about Stu's personality was more likely developed by the director (Jon Avnet: Fried Green Tomatoes) than by Elijah.  But the director still needed an actor who was able to become the character he envisioned. Stu is very obviously more extraverted than most of Elijah's characters.  His emotions are "right out there."  In this role, we need to watch for intensity more than nuances (although the nuances are there, too).      Stu is also someone who lives in the moment.  It's not that he doesn't think about things, but he does his thinking at the time, rather than before or after. There's not much long-term planning or consideration of future consequences. The time to decide how to deal with something is when it happens.  While this has its drawbacks (and consequences), it lets him be in the moment more than most people are. With that in mind, compare Stu's face and body language to that of the second boy as they head down the hill:

We're just a few frames from hitting the water when Stu starts preparing.  Why waste all of your seconds of ecstasy by thinking about the end?

In the picture just below, I thought perhaps I'd caught a continuity break. What happened to the second boy in the cart?  Was this so dangerous they took him out of the cart because he wasn't completely necessary for the shot? But how could they have done that without a cut?  He's certainly too big to completely disappear behind Stu.

Well, guess he isn't.  Here he is in the very next frame, still shielding himself behind Stu.  Stu is definitely a kid who'd want the front seat in a roller-coaster, if he ever had a chance to ride a roller-coaster.   The position of each of the three boys here says a lot about their relationship to each other, as we'll see below.

What can I say about Stu in the following caps?  Pure exhilaration.  There's nothing held back.  Why should there be? Any fear's over, and the future doesn't exist.  There's no reason to do anything but revel in the moment.

I don't remember seeing the following facial expression on any other character Elijah's played.  It's as if all thought has disappeared and what we see is pure emotion.

But now it's the moment to get ready to do it again.

I was originally planning to start a new page here, but I'm squeezing these last pics in on this one because... Well, you'll understand when we get to the next page. ________________ Lipnicki sighting!  Stu switches immediately into thinking/planning mode, while the other two boys are still taking in the situation.

It takes him only a few frames  to start moving.

Okay, but this takes some detailed planning; there's a bit of engineering to figure out.

It's during the planning that we get a picture of the relationship between the three friends.   The bigger boy says to Stu, "If you're thinkin' what I think you're thinkin'..."  He's not dumb - he's gotten the same idea.  But he knows that if Stu's thinking about it, it'll happen.  Not only is Stu the one most likely to figure out exactly how to pull it off, but he's also the acknowledged leader of the group throughout the movie. Later on, when he makes the "dare" with the girls about the treehouse, the other boys don't like it but they don't vote him down. The bigger boy is in it all the way here, as he was with driving the cart down the hill.  He relishes the idea of dunking the Lipnickis into a cesspool; he just needs Stu to take the lead.  The third friend follows along even though he's not quite sure about the whole thing, which doesn't seem to be an unusual position for him.

Elijah Wood Movie Trivia Question Level: Easy

During his adolescent/teen years, Elijah was in two dramas set during the 1970's, but the characters he played in them are at the opposite ends of the spectrum in both social status and personality.  What are the two movies? (Scroll down for answer.)

The War and The Ice Storm