My Own Private Idaho

Year:1991 - New Line Cinema Director: Gus Van Sant Jr. Screenplay: William Shakespeare, Gus Van Sant Jr. Starring: River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, William Richert, James Russo, and Udo Kier

Gus Van Sant Jr's 1991 film, My Own Private Idaho, contains no B-52's music. Bummer.

In Drugstore Cowboy, Van Sant cast his characters into the underworld of drug addiction. Once again Van Sant has chosen a seamy subculture as the setting for his film. The main characters in My Own Private Idaho are two teenage male prostitutes played by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. The two men come to prostitution on the streets of Portland from two very different backgrounds and for different reasons. River's character, Mike Waters, comes to his profession out of desperate loneliness and financial need. Suffering from narcolepsy, it is apparent he could not hold a normal job for long. His sudden attacks of sleep are brought on during times of stress. When he becomes unconscious he is transported in his dreams to his childhood where he has vague memories of a comforting mother. A mother, who like himself, was a prostitute. The product of an incestuous relationship between his brother and mother, Mike's childhood was not particularly normal. At an early age, Mike was separated from his mother when she was placed in a mental hospital. This separation haunts him throughout his teenage years. Many times when he awakens, Mike finds himself on the same section of rural highway, ( " A road like a fucked-up face"), somewhere between Portland and his boyhood home in Idaho. It is almost as if his dreams where actually transporting him home.

Keanu Reeves plays Mike's friend and protector Scott Favor. Unlike Mike, Scott comes from a very wealthy and powerful family. His father is the mayor of Portland and he is guaranteed an inheritance when he turns twenty-one. Because his future is certain, Scott has decided to live as degenerative a life as possible until he comes into his money. Unlike Mike, Scott is not homosexual and has cultivated a very cynical view of life. By debasing himself to the pathetic state of prostitution and thievery, it is understandable how he can have so little regard for his old cohorts later in the film after he has inherited his father's money.

Scott's story is of course an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV. The grafting of the bard's play into this film is clumsy at best. The Sir John character, Bob in the film, is portrayed courageously by William Richert. Alas, it is to no avail. Scott, or Prince Harry, is supposed to love Bob more than his own father. There is no bond in the film between Bob and Scott. Hence, there is no sense of betrayal of Bob when Scott turns his back on him once Scott has ascended to power.

Far more interesting is the story of Mike and his relationship with Scott. Scott relates to Mike like an older brother. When Mike has had his attacks of narcolepsy, it is many times Scott who has watched over his sleep and protected him from harm. When Mike decides to visit his brother in Idaho to find out about his mother, Scott accompanies him. There is a sense of real caring of Scott for Mike's welfare. Mike's quest leads to a home in Italy where his mother worked for a short time. At the farmhouse where Mike's mother stayed, Scott meets and falls in love with the farmer's daughter. This is a blow to Mike who is in love with Scott himself. When Scott returns to Portland with the girl as a new wife, Mike feels betrayed and abandoned. Alone again in Portland, Mike's attacks have increased to the point he can barely even work. The last scene finds him once again on the road to Idaho where two people steal his wallet and shoes while he sleeps. Mysteriously, a car pulls up and takes Mike away. Mike apparently still has a protector.

Mike's life is filled with desperation, poverty and filth. His clients are mostly pathetic lonely men with strange and perverse fantasies. The scene where Phoenix cleans an apartment dressed as a Dutch boy is both funny and a little sad. Mike only barely exists in this world. He cannot let go of his past. He keeps travelling that road between Portland and Idaho looking for that exit he missed. It might be he never seeks medical attention for his illness because the sleep offers him the escape from this life he yearns for.

Phoenix's performance is excellent in this film. At the time this film was made, both Reeves and Phoenix were big teenage idols. I can imagine their agents were not that crazy about the two stars poisoning their appeal to teenage female ticket buyers by playing men engaging in homosexual acts. It is a real shame that Phoenix is dead in the ground while Reeves is still making movies in which we half expect him to say "Dude!" every other line.

While this is not Van Sant's best film, it still has some very poignant and memorable moments.