Movie Reviews

My Own Private Idaho

"My Own Private Idaho" is a 1991 indie drama by Gus Van Sant, starring River Phoenix as Mike Waters and Keanu Reeves as Scott Favor. This movie lasts 1h43. It is loosely inspired from Shakespeare's "Henry IV".
Mike is a narcoleptic male prostitute in Portland. For those two reasons, it takes a lot to impress him; he is used to waking up in random places. Besides, during his stress-induced sleeping episodes, he has various visions, notably of his mother stroking his hair. Another male prostitute, Scotty, often picks him up and takes care of him when he passes out. While Mike comes from a broken family which could explain his current condition, Scott is the rebellious yet educated son of a mayor. They are pretty close friends, and go through a lot together. They live in an abandoned building owned by an old woman, and somewhat ruled by an older storyteller homosexual man, Bob (William Richert), who used to entertain a love / kinship relationship with Scotty. One night, Mike and Scotty steal money and leave on an adventure to find Mike's mother. Pretty early on, Mike confesses his love to Scotty, sort of nonchalantly; but Scotty replies that he has sex with men for money but could never love a man. And that's basically the end of it. Outdated leads make them travel to Idaho, and even to Rome, Italy. Along the way, they meet a variety of people from their past, with whom they unsuccessfully rejoice. Once in Italy, Scotty falls in love with a young bilingual lady, Carmella (Chiara Caselli), that Mike's mother used to teach. Eventually, Mike decides to go back to the United States, but Scotty stays to marry Carmella. By force of being a prostitute in Rome, Mike gathers enough money to come back to Portland, and resume the life he always had. He becomes one of Bob's minions. Eventually, upon hearing of his father's death, Scotty comes back to the country. He is married and rich. He pretty clearly says that he wants all ties cut with his past. From that news, Bob dies of a broken heart. Both Bob's and Scotty's father's funerals are held on the same day, and they are fundamentally different. It's a quite interesting scene to witness. The movie ends with Mike waking up on a road in the middle of nowhere again, he gets robbed, then picked up by a car.
On many aspects, this is a rather odd film. Though the story is believable and looks kind of like a dramatic slice of life, the visuals and ways of storytelling are what make it almost an art movie. The camera angles are definitely not traditional, with a lot of angle switches, from eye-level to birdseye view to low angle… The lighting is more traditional though. Twice in the movie, instead of just showing a sex scene, a montage of stills from different steps of the action is shown. And they're not actual stills, which is what makes it even weirder, they are like… paused moments? So the characters are immobile but they still breathe or blink. It's very original, I have never seen that anywhere else. Overall, the storytelling sequences crazy scenes with more normal ones, which gives it an unusual feel.
A good movie for people who would like to start watching art or indie films but are scared to get bored or weirded out.