My Own Private Idaho [1991]

My Own Private Idaho is perhaps the crowning achievement of Gus Van Sant, maker of some of the finest independent films in America. The movie follows two male hustlers – Mike, a male prostitute suffering from narcolepsia who is desperate to find his lost mother, and Scott – a rebellious rich kid who has hit the road to escape the constraints imposed for being a wealthy man’s son. However unlike Mike, who will probably have to spend all his life working on the streets along with a bunch of idiosyncratic fellow-hustlers, Scott is ready to step back into a conventional lifestyle after he inherits his money and forget that he ever had anything to do with the people (including his best friend Mike) he is hanging out with. Bravura direction by the indie master, mesmerizing camera work, a thoroughly unconventional narrative and brilliant career making turns by both River Pheonix and Keanu Reaves have made this quirky black comedy and surprisingly poignant human drama, a near poetic (and I must add, wildly convoluted) take on friendship, unrequited love, human alienation and the harshness of life on the road.






Director: Gus Van Sant
Genre: Drama/Black Comedy/Road Movie/Buddy Film
Language: English
Country: US