My Own Private Idaho

Gus Van Sant's dreamtime riff on Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Parts I and II" features River Phoenix as Mike Waters, a narcoleptic male hustler who is first seen drifting on a stretch of highway in Idaho. Mike shifts from Seattle to Portland, where he has taken up with Scott Favor (Keanu Reeves), who is ...more

Gus Van Sant's third feature further established him as a spokesman not just for alienated gay men but also for disaffected youth in general. A harsh, beautiful, and fervently original portrait of alienation, betrayal, and unrequited love, My Own Private Idaho was one of the defining films of both Van Sant's career and the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s. While Drugstore Cowboy (1989), Van Sant's previous film, had focused on a group of people driven to society's fringes by their drug addiction, ...more