My Own Private Idaho

3.75
    My Own Private Idaho
    1991

    Synopsis

    In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.

    Your Movie Library

    Cast

    • River PhoenixMichael "Mike" Waters
    • Keanu ReevesScott Favor
    • James RussoRichard Waters
    • William RichertBob Pigeon
    • Rodney HarveyGary
    • Chiara CaselliCarmella
    • Michael ParkerDigger
    • Jessica MakinsonDenise
    • FleaBudd
    • Grace ZabriskieAlena

    Recommendations

    • 100

      The New York Times

      The film itself is invigorating - written, directed, and acted with enormous insight and comic elan. [27 Sept 1991]
    • 100

      Washington Post

      It gets you below the emotional belt in a searing, delicate way. No movie this year approaches such magnificent imagery, such delectable poetry.
    • 90

      Chicago Reader

      The style is so eclectic that it may take some getting used to, but Van Sant, working from his own story for the first time, brings such lyrical focus to his characters and his poetry that almost everything works.
    • 90

      Washington Post

      Van Sant's sensibility is wholly original, wholly fresh. "My Own Private Idaho" adds a new ingredient: a kind of boho sweetness. I loved it.
    • 88

      The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

      My Own Private Idaho achieves more than most movies dream of attempting. The Shakespearian allusions aside, Van Sant has essentially remade "Of Mice and Men" for the nineties, with Mike as the "mouse," Scott as the "man." It is the mouse who roars.
    • 78

      Austin Chronicle

      It's a daredevil's ride that keeps you glued with fascination.
    • 75

      Entertainment Weekly

      But Van Sant, whose vision is otherwise sharp, pushes the connection to Shakespeare's Henry IV too far, having Reeves at one point declaim in rhyming couplets, which severely tests even the most forgiving viewer.
    • 70

      Los Angeles Times

      No matter what you've been used to, Idaho is something completely different, a film that manages to confound all expectations, even the ones it sets up itself. [18 Oct 1991]

    Loved by

    Seen by

    Lists