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Poster for My Own Private Idaho

My Own Private Idaho

Wherever, whatever, have a nice day.

1991 · 1h 44m · R Drama
Directed by Gus Van Sant

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Overview

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.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
80%
Tomatometer
Fresh

A simultaneously heartbreaking and exhilarating road movie.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Fresh

Holding all these elements together is Van Sant's sensibility, such an elusive thing it instinctively squirms away from any attempt to pigeonhole it.

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
Fresh

Although River Phoenix has distinguished himself as an actor ever since his second film, Stand By Me, nothing he has ever done before prepares you for his performance in Private Idaho as the motherless, homeless, loveless piece of human driftwood.

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
Fresh

This is a very rich, very sympathetic piece of work.

Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune
Rotten

[Van Sant] disdain[s] narrative. He got away with Drugstore Cowboy because its band of drugged-out dodoes were engaged in a petty crime spree that almost passed for a plot. But My Own Private Idaho is a different story. Or rather nonstory.

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

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