Day 4: My Own Private Idaho

Colour me conflicted. Did I like this film? Did I think it was a bit… disappointing? I think I’m going to have to settle on the latter but only because I had such high expectations. Always a bad thing, better to go in with no feelings. I found myself saying “What am I watching…?” occasionally throughout. Never really a good sign but I would watch it again to give it another try, I think.

The film follows Mike (River Phoenix), a narcoleptic male prostitute, as he meanders from person to place to person apparently free of all ties. He keeps coming back to the same road, he says it’s his road, and you feel like he will never escape the world he has entered. He is part of a larger group of homeless young people who steal and make their money as best they can. Scott (Keanu Reeves) is a rich kid who has been with the group for years and also dabbles in prostitution. They partner up and go from place to place, eventually searching for Mike’s mother who he is desperate to be reunited with. It’s obvious his family life was less than ideal and he wishes it had been normal so he could’ve been “well-adjusted”. But as Scott rightly chimes in, what is normal? What’s well-adjusted? You can have a mother and father (and a dog) and still end up outside the ‘norm’. It’s impossible to control for it and I bet if you were to really ask people, you’d find nobody was well-adjusted. Nobody is normal. Normal is a myth perpetuated to keep us down and make us feel worthless, constantly striving for an ideal that just does not exist.

I’ve never seen a film starring River Phoenix before but he definitely made an impression. He just embodied Mike. At no point did his behaviour seem forced or unrealistic, you believed in what he was doing and how he was acting. The dialogue though… Apparently the film is loosely based around Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 & 2 which makes a lot of sense. The way the characters talk at certain points feel like they’re on a stage being tediously over-dramatic. I really could’ve done without that as it actually made me uncomfortable. Just because it was so clunky and awkward (much like my sentence structure, ha). Although one good point for that aspect is that it worked perfectly for Keanu Reeves. His talents work in highly specialised circumstances, which is to say they work when his line delivery is meant to sound awkward. I want so much to like Keanu Reeves but outside of Constantine (which I like despite my better judgment) he is just so wooden. Which isn’t a new criticism, and one that seems to have no bearing on his ability to get work. His character is a bit of an arse in this (outside of his caring for Mike) and his behaviour seems to detract from the actual problems and struggles experienced by the other characters. I’m not saying all rich kids don’t have their own problems, they absolutely do, but his doing-this-to-upset-daddy routine just doesn’t sit well with me. These guys were doing it to survive while he was doing it for what seemed like a joke, mainly. He wants to prove his father wrong and show him he can turn it all around when it matters. So he marries a woman and inherits a ton of money then tosses aside those men he was close with for years. Going so far as to drive past Mike as he’s passed out at the side of the road! No excuse for ditching your friends like that. You want a clean slate, a new start, but you integrated yourself in their world – especially Mike’s – it’s cruel to so quickly dissociate yourself from them when it suits.

This scene here when he confesses his love to Scott felt like a pivotal moment for Mike. He can’t find his mother, his brother turns out to be his father (maybe?), he moves from place to place making no real connections. Except for Scott. Scott cares for him when he has his narcoleptic episodes repeatedly throughout the film and they spend time together, just being together and experiencing the world with each other. And Mike loves Scott. It’s not a demanding love, he isn’t insisting that Scott feel the same. He just loves him and shares that with him. He just seems so simple and pure at heart that you can’t help but feel for him the whole way through. Great scene. I think possibly my favourite, mainly because it was a concrete situation while the rest of the film had a dreamy air to it. That’s not to say it’s bad but if I’m going to do dreamy I need an anchor and that scene ‘round the fire is it for me. What I find interesting about Scott here is when he says “I'll only have sex with a guy for money” - out of all the people in this film, he doesn’t need the money. Perhaps taking money for the sex he has with men is his way of rationalising taking part in it. Maybe he enjoys it but doesn’t want to because, as he quickly follows up, “Two guys can’t love each other.” Taking money for it makes it seem more about business and less about a reflection on his nature. Ultimately, Mike is alone in his feelings and after Scott takes off to play rich kid again, he is alone completely. Back in the endless cycle of person and place and person.

I’d watch the film again, if only to confirm my feelings on it as a whole. And to love Mike just that little bit more.

6.5/10