Mike Waters (River Phoenix) is a gay hustler standing alone on a deserted stretch of highway somewhere in Idaho. He starts talking to himself and notices that the road looks “like someone’s face, like a f**ked-up face.” He suffers from narcolepsy, experiences an episode and dreams of his mother comforting him as he replays home movies of his childhood in his mind. Mike wakes up to being fellated by a client. After his hotel encounter, he returns to his favorite spots to pick up potential clients. A wealthy older woman Alena (Grace Zabriskie) takes him to her mansion where he meets two fellow hustlers she also hired. One of them is Scott Favor (Keanu Reeves), Mike’s best friend. Mike is in love with Scott, who insists he is straight and his hustling on the streets is only temporary. While preparing to have sex with the woman, Mike experiences another narcoleptic fit and awakens the next day with Scott in Portland, Oregon.
Scott: I never thought I could be a real model, you know fashion-s**t, cause I'm better at full body stuff. It's okay so long as the photographer doesn't come on to you and expect something for no pay I'm trying to make a living, you know, and I like to be professional 'Course if the guy wants to pay me, then s**t-yeah. Here I am for him. I'll sell my ass, I do it on the street all the time for cash. And I'll be on the cover of a book. It's when you start doing things for free, that you start to grow wings. Isn't that right, Mike.
Mike: What?
Scott: Wings, Michael. You grow wings, and become a fairy.
Mike: (in a coffee shop) How'd we get home?
Scott: That German guy. Hans. He brought you downtown, you were passed out. He said he was heading to Portland, so I asked him for a ride.
Mike: For some reason I'm forgetting a German guy named Hans.
Scott: Well. You were sleeping.
Mike: How much do you make off me while I'm sleeping?
Scott: Just a ride, Mike. I don't make anything. What, you think that I sell your body while you are asleep?
Mike: Yeah.
Scott: No, Mike. I'm on your side.
Mike and Scott are soon reunited with their mentor Bob Pigeon (William Richert), a middle-aged man and father figure to a gang of street kids and hustlers who live in an abandoned apartment building. Scott, the son of the mayor of Portland, admits to Bob in private that when he turns 21, he will inherit his father’s fortune and reject the street hustler lifestyle. Mike yearns to find his mother and he and Scott leave Portland for Idaho to visit Mike’s older brother Richard (James Russo), who lives in an old trailer. Richard tries to tell Mike who his real father is but Mike says that he knows it is Richard. He tells Mike that their mother works as a hotel maid and when Mike and Scott visit the hotel they find out that she went to Italy to find her own family.
Bob: Scott. When you inherit your fortune, on your twenty-first birthday, let's see... how far away is this?
Scott: One week away, Bob, just one more week.
Bob: Let's not call ourselves robbers, but Diana's foresters. Gentlemen of the shade. Minions of the Moon. Men of good government.
Scott: When I turn twenty-one, I don't want any more of this life. My mother and father will be surprised at the incredible change. It will impress them more when such a f**k-up like me turns good than if I had been a good son all along. All the past years I will think of as one big vacation. At least it wasn't as boring as schoolwork. All my bad behavior I'm going to throw away to pay my debt. I will change when everybody expects it the least.
Richard: That guy. He was your real dad, Mike.
Mike: Don't f**k me in the head anymore man! I know the f**king truth! I know who my f**king real dad is!
Richard: Who?... Who?
Mike: Dick, you. Richard, you're my dad. I know that.
Richard: You know too much.
Mike: What do I mean to you?
Scott: What do you mean to me? Mike, you're my best friend.
Mike: I know, man, I know... I know... I know I'm your friend. We're good friends, and that's good to be, you know, good friends. That's a good thing.
Scott: So...
Mike: So I just...(pauses) That's okay. We're going to be friends.
Scott: I only have sex with a guy for money.
Mike: Yeah, I know, I mean...
Scott: And two guys can't love each other.
Mike: Yeah. Well, I don't know, I mean, I mean for me, I could love someone even if I, you know, wasn't paid for it. I love you, and... you don't pay me.
Scott: Mike...
Mike: I really wanna kiss you, man. (pauses) Well goodnight man. (pauses again) I love you, though. (pauses again) You know that. I do love you.
Scott: (moves some things out of his way) Alright, come here, Mike. (pats the ground) Let's just see. It could be fun. Just gonna see, come on.
(Mike moves over towards Scott and lowers his head. They presumably start to kiss)
In Italy, Mike and Scott find the country farmhouse where Mike’s mother worked as a maid and an English tutor. The young woman Carmella (Chiara Caselli) who lives there tells Mike that his mother returned to the US months ago. Carmella and Scott fall in love and return to the US leaving Mike to return home on his own. Back in Portland, Bob and his gang confront a newly reformed Scott at a posh restaurant but he rejects them. That night, Bob has a fatal heart attack. The next day, the hustlers hold a rowdy funeral for Bob while in the same cemetery, a few yards away, Scott attends a solemn funeral for his recently deceased father.
Mike is back on a deserted stretch of Idaho highway. He falls into another narcoleptic stupor and two strangers pull up in a truck, steal Mike’s belongings and drive away. Moments later, a car pulls up and a driver picks Mike up, places him in the vehicle and drives off.
(last lines)
Mike: I'm a connoisseur of roads. I've been tasting roads my whole life. This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world.
This melancholy film loosely based on Shakespeare's "Henry IV", Part 1, is a dreamlike, eerie, haunting, engaging, and often surreal masterpiece. The plot is loose, cinematography is lush, and River Phoenix gives one of the best performances of his tragically short career. It's a marvelous balancing act: the movie feels grungy and and as transcendent as poetry at the same time. There is a lot of vulgar language, nudity and simulated sex. Strangely, at no point the film is AIDS mentioned. The omission must be deliberate. It's not enough to assume that these guys practice safe-sex because Mike is seen carrying a condom at one point. Whatever the explanation, AIDS simply does not exist in MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO.
Film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "The achievement of this film is that it wants to evoke that state of drifting need, and it does. There is no mechanical plot that has to grind to a Hollywood conclusion, and no contrived test for the heroes to pass." The origins of "My Own Private Idaho" come from John Rechy's 1963 novel "City of Night", which features characters who are street hustlers that do not admit to being gay.
The cast also includes: Rodney Harvey (Gary), Michael Parker (Digger), Jessie Thomas (Denise), Flea (Budd), Tom Troupe (Jack Favor), Udo Kier (Hans), Sally Curtice (Jane Lightwork), Robert Lee Pitchlynn (Walt), Mickey Cottrell (Daddy Carroll), Wade Evans (Wade), Matthew Ebert (Coverboy), Scott Patrick Green (Coverboy / Cafe Kid), Tom Cramer (Coverboy), Vana O'Brien (Sharon Waters), (Shaun Jordan (Cafe Kid), Shawn Jones (Cafe Kid), George Conner (Bad George), Oliver Kirk (Indian Cop), Stanley Hainsworth (Dirtman), Joshua Halladay (Baby Mike), Douglas Tollenen (Little Richard), Steven Clark Pachosa (Hotel Manager), Lannie Swerdlow (Disco Manager), Wally Gaarsland (Rock Promoter), Brian Wilson (Rock Promoter), Mark Weaver (Rock Promoter), Conrad "Bud" Montgomery (Rock Promoter), Pat Patterson (Cop), Steve Vernelson (Cop), Mike Cascadden (Cop), Eric Hull (Mayor's Aide), James A. Arling (Minister), James Caviezel (Airline Clerk), Ana Cavinato (Stewardess), Melanie Mosely (Lounge Hostess), Greg Murphy (Carl), David Reppinhagen (Yuppie at Jake's), Tiger Warren (Himself), Massimo Di Cataldo (Italian Street Boy), Pao Pei Andreoli (Italian Street Boy), Robert Egon (Italian Street Boy), Paolo Baiocco (Italian Street Boy), Mario Stracciarolo (Mike's Italian Client), Heather J. Braden (Yuppie at Jakes), Kirsten Kuppenbender (Portland Street Girl), Jesse Merz (Mean Kid #2), Tom Peterson, Eli Swenson (Street Hustler), and Gus Van Sant (Man behind hotel counter). Bill Stafford composed the incidental music. Gus Van Sant wrote the screenplay derived from William Shakespeare's stage play "Henry IV". He wrote the original screenplay in the 1970s when he was living in Hollywood. Directed by Gus Van Sant.
This milestone independent film is now available on DVD from the Criterion Collection. It includes a two-hour interview with Van Sant (audio only), a new making-of retrospective, interviews galore, deleted scenes, and an impressive booklet with essays and printed interviews.
