Possibly Now Old Enough for this Movie

Imagine it's 1991 and 13 year-old Amy has just learned that there is a movie coming out starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. It may not surprise you to learn that 13 year-old Amy did not spend any time investigating the plot or themes of said movie as the leads made it a lock. When you put together that the movie in question is Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho,

Poster for the film My Own Private Idaho. IMDB, 2022
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102494/?ref_=tt_mv_close

it will definitely not surprise you to learn that 13 year-old Amy was very confused when she first watched it. For My Own Private Idaho, despite its heartthrob leads, was not intended for 13 year-old girls with cartoon hearts for eyeballs. 15 or 16 year-olds, maybe. But not 13 year-old Amy.

It's the story of male sex-workers (called hustlers in the film, but I'm not sure if that's still a term in use) trying to get by and exist in America. Mike (played by Phoenix) comes from poverty, is trying to reconnect with his mother, and suffers from narcolepsy, and Scott (played by Reeves) is the son of a prominent politician, rebelling against his father in the last few weeks before he turns 21 and inherits a lot of money.

What 13 year-old Amy didn't know is that the movie is loosely based on the Shakespearean play Henry IV, which I'd like to claim is why I was confused in my first viewing of the film back in 1991, but 43 year-old Amy, who has an Honours English degree and studied theatre for two years, was also a bit lost (hey, I'm not a fan of Shakespeare's histories - I'm a Twelfth Night kind of gal).

Source Material
photo credit: University of Glasgow Library

I have virtually no memories of the film from my first viewing, a sign that it was well over my head in terms of themes. I do remember that I watched it with my parents at home as it was rated R and therefore I was unable to see it in the theatre. Given the...nature of the film's content (IMDB indicates that the R rating is for "strong sensuality," which I think is an excellent and also very sensitive description of the movie), I can only imagine what my parents must have been thinking when I asked to rent My Own Private Idaho from Blockbuster. I am choosing to believe that they thought I was some sort of film aficionado, advanced beyond my years, and ready for such complicated movies, rather than a hormone-struck confused teenager. We all have our delusions - give me this one.

Remember this place? What a time to be alive it was!
Photo credit: Stu pendousmat

My Own Private Idaho was an indie film with a modest budget (2.5 million, according to Google), but I do think it's worth noting how revolutionary it would have been when it was released. Heck, still today! 

1991 was a pretty homophobic time in North America, and queer culture wasn't mainstream. Given that in 1993, two years after this movie, Will Smith refused to kiss his male costar in the film Six Degrees of Separation over fears about what such a kiss would do to his career, the fact that two rising Hollywood stars (Reeves and Phoenix) took on roles that put them in sensual scenes with each other and other men in a movie that was all about being queer and an outsider, was remarkable. And I'm so glad that their decision didn't hurt their careers (1991 was a wild time, my friends. I truly think it could have gone either way).

Although I've reflected on it during every movie I've watched in my quest to become a River Phoenix movie completist, watching My Own Private Idaho was the first time that it really hit me what a loss it was to films that Phoenix died so young. He's simultaneously fearless and vulnerable in every scene of this movie, and it seems effortless. Where Reeves has to work a bit with the Shakespearean text (and to be fair, he has more of it than Phoenix does), River Phoenix delivers the heightened 16th century language with the same ease as the modern dialogue. There are only five movies left after Idaho that Phoenix made, but if he hadn't died, I think his filmography would have been filled with diverse, challenging, complicated, fun, and genre-pushing movies. And it really sucks that we don't get to have those movies.

Also, look at his hair.

This should be everyone's hair goals
Still from the movie My Own Private Idaho

For those of you here for the hot hair takes, I'm afraid our next watch might be a bit of a downer. The film is great, don't get me wrong, but in Dogfight Phoenix plays a marine, so his hair is regulation short, which is not okay.
 

Hair too short, unacceptable
Poster for the film Dogfight. Wikipedia, 2022,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfight_(film)

I hope you'll join me for it anyway. It really is a heck of a film!

Adultery, Attempted Murder, and New York Pizza!

Between 1982 and 1983, Frances Toto tried to have her husband Tony killed five times. All attempts failed, and the couple (after Frances served some time) remained together. 

In 1990, Lawrence Kasdan made the movie I Love You To Death based on this strange true story (although he condensed the time to a period of a week or so). 

It's an odd (but good!) movie, probably because it's based on an odd story. In the movie, Rosalie, played by Tracey Ullman, and Joey, played by Kevin Kline, own a pizzeria in New York City. Watching their kids arrive in the restaurant after school and be served fresh pizza and have access to unlimited fountain pop made me wish I had grown up in a pizzeria.

Rosalie is bonkers in love with Joey, even though he's kind of a prick, expects her to take care of him as if he were a toddler, and, oh yeah, he cheats on her. A lot. 

Some of the women he cheats on her with:

Photo by David Shankbone

Remember Victoria Jackson? If you watched SNL as religiously as I did in the early 90s, then you've seen her work. She's very funny, although underused in this movie (honestly, all the women that he cheats with are basically walking props, but I guess that's what the story "needed").

Also, he cheats with her:

Photo by Tyler Curtis

Yup, that's Heather Graham!

And interestingly, Joey also cheats with her:

Photo by Alan Light

Why is that interesting, you might ask? Well let's zoom out on that photo, shall we?

Photo by Alan Light

That's Phoebe Cates with her husband Kevin Kline who played Joey. They would have been married just before (or possibly during) the shooting of I Love You To Death.

Anyway, Joey is giving it to a lot of women that aren't his wife, and she finds out and is devastated.  

Rather than leave the jerk, though, she plots, along with her mother, to kill him. Mom is totally on board with this murderous plan - she's never liked Joey. 

After a failed attempt with a bat-wielding assassin and an impotent car bomb, Rosalie spikes Joey's spaghetti with a lethal amount of sleeping pills, then calls in the services of their employee at the pizzeria, Devo, who happens to be in love with her. Devo is charmingly played by River Phoenix (more about him later).

Devo shoots Joey in the head, but somehow doesn't kill him. Distraught and unable to pull the trigger again, Devo hires "professionals" to finish the job, but Joey remains unkillable. Wounded and bleeding out, eventually the police come, at which point the would-be killers are arrested, but not for long, because Joey has seen the error of his ways and bails Rosalie out, begging for forgiveness. What can she do, she's powerless against his charms. So it's a happy ending? I guess?

The scope of the story pushes against the container it's in - this is a story we're used to seeing on a grand scale, with car chases and explosions, narrow misses and baited breath, but it all takes place in the family home, which starts to feel very close. I think that's the intention here - to bring the viewer into the mundane decisions surrounding this un-mundane (not a word) murder.

But you're not here for the critical analysis, you're here for my take on River Phoenix!

First, though, we need to discuss the crime that is Kevin Kline's Italian accent. It's worrying that no one noticed how bad it was. Was a dialect coach not even considered? Honestly, his accent is about as good as mine would be if I was off-the-cuff pretending to be Chef Boyardee in my kitchen to embarrass my children. I'll forgive it though, because he's Kevin Kline, and it's the only misstep in an otherwise very entertaining performance.

You know who doesn't have an accent issue? Tracey freaking Ullman, that's who! 

LOOK. AT. THAT. HAIR!
Photo by Alan Light

This Brit pulls off a flawless New York accent. Take a note, Kevin Kline!

This year, I learned that Tracey Ullman and Meryl Streep are best friends. I like that. I would like to be invited to one of their sleepovers, which I assume they have regularly.

Okay, when will I get to the River Phoenix stuff, you ask? Now. I will get to it now.

Phoenix is highly endearing as the young Devo who is in love with Rosalie. I was reminded of his May-December love affair from A Night In the Life of Jimmy Reardon in concept only. There's nothing creepy about the relationship here, and you totally buy that he'd do anything for Rosalie, even though he knows she'll never feel the same way about him.

There's a great deal of restraint in this movie, particularly in Phoenix's performance, which I think comes down to the fact that it's based on a true story and Kasdan is careful not to turn it into a cartoon, no matter how improbable the real-life events were. Devo could easily become a stereotype of a new-age hippie, but he's grounded in reality. The same can be said for the two stoned hired killers (played by William Hurt and Keanu Reeves), who are the broadest performances in the movie, but still feel rooted in reality. 

Did I have the same floppy hair cut as Phoenix in this movie from 1992-1994?

Photo by Alan Light

Absolutely I did.

Teenage Amy was thrilled to find River Phoenix AND Keanu Reeves in this movie, even though both played supporting roles. She was almost hysterical when she learned they would be together again in Phoenix's next movie My Own Private Idaho. Watching it at 13 confused her deeply as she was hoping for a non-threatening boys road trip movie, and she did not get that. 

43 year old Amy is looking forward to reviewing it, and is hopeful that she might understand it this time.