My Own Private Idaho (1991) Top 100

I remember being struck by the opening of My Own Private Idaho the first time I saw it. River Phoenix walked into the frame and I thought it was the most beautiful face I had ever seen. It wasn't the first thing that would knock me on my ass in this film. My Own Private Idaho was my first exposure to queer cinema, not gay cinema, but queer cinema, cinema that subverted cultural norms in uncomfortable ways but in that created affirming spaces for those of us on the margins. It was an awakening for me, not just in terms of art but in terms of what being queer meant and would mean for me.

Idaho is a remarkable juggling act, balancing a number of moods, themes, ideas, visuals, styles. It gets to some harrowingly dark places, some perversely kinky sexual explorations, and some truly joyous moments of glee. But at its heart is the story of a young, impoverished, queer man whose quest for love and community goes unanswered. While there is so much to love about this film, it is Phoenix in the most heart breaking performance I have ever seen who reaches into my gut every time I watch it. I remember not being to stop the tears during the camp fire scene. Phoenix's expression of "I really want to kiss you, man" before curling up into a ball was one of the most revealing and relatable deliveries I've seen in any film ever. Reeves is all rejection, denial, and tourism and was something I was overly familiar with as I had encountered men like him time after time, something I didn't know how to articulate but something frustrating my lived experience. Phoenix's quiet resistance to it made me think it could be possible to be who I wanted to be.

I think this is where Idaho gets to me the more I watch it, in the way it withstands the thundering hegemony. It isn't a triumph over it but a survival of it, and in that it speaks to the queer experience so powerfully. Yes sometimes I want the triumphant fantasy but perhaps more honestly I need the quiet survival of living in heteronormativity. And this is where some of the Shakespeare comes into it. Van Sant's merging of this narrative with his modernization of the Henriad plays is brilliant. We often see Prince Hal as the hero of his story but here we see a different side of that persona, one that is exploitative and disappointing. I mean in how we build our passion for that rich straight man who naturally lets us down by holding up his own privilege at our expense.

I wasn't familiar with Henry IV when I first saw this film so the story of young Scott Favor's turning his back on his rebellious years and embracing his privileged life was new to me. But there was something about the awkward anachronistic language, especially delivered in Reeves' clumsy affect, that grabbed me. Idaho was both fantastic allegory and documentary style realism. As I said, a big part of the film's revolutionary (and very queer) approach was to mix styles, the Shakespeare modernization, interview style recounting of real street hustlers' stories, emotive low budget indie film, all thrown together into one unique experience, an experience which subverts both. And the stories gel so well together as they take each other apart. As I mentioned, we see the Prince Hal character differently, but we also see the sad gay boy differently. Through all of this we are given something original.

"It's a fucked up face." And yet we see how beautiful that face is. Each time I watch My Own Private Idaho I see more in it than the last time. I imagine it will always offer me that.

My Own Private Idaho
Starring: River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, William Richert, Chiara Caselli, Udo Kier, Grace Zabriski, James Russo, Jim Cavielzel
Writer/Director: Gus Van Sant