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!