My Own Private Idaho. Sad but worthy of praise

My Own Private Idaho is a film that I personally find, beautiful and heart breaking. Even though it is clearly a film with a strong theme of homosexuality, I do not see it as solely that. I actually feel that this movie deals more with the heartbreak and loneliness of someone trying to find a place to belong to, a place to feel at home, to feel warmth.

To me a big theme in this movie is family, and also the strained relationships within families. Scott has a father, a father who may not be the best person in the world, but is trying to give his son a choice to do good, and even though Scott could have anything he wants in this world, he chooses to instead live on the streets and sell his body for money. He outwardly defies his father, and valiantly parades his tirades in front of him, to show that he is rebelling. While Mike is so desperate to find his mother, even though his mother clearly is of low stature, and also not the best mother in the world, or even one who cares about her children. Mike yearns for her, and this causes him so much grief that it actually triggers his narcolepsy plenty of times. The strain of wanting a home, and love tends to send him into an episode at random moments. Mike wants love and warmth, he even goes as far to confess his love to Scott in the campfire scene, I found this scene to be so true and moving, River’s performance is outstanding, especially in this scene. You can really taste his raw emotions, how much he needs affection, true affection, and human warmth that is freely given and needs nothing in return. He wants to love and be loved, and he yearns for a family. He does not seem to resent or even question as to why his brother is also his father, he accepts that, that is his reality, and is willing to just leave it as is, as long as he can find his mom. The sad reality, is that his quest to find his mother, someone to love him, takes him to Italy, where inadvertently he looses the only person who understood, his closest friend who took care of him and watched over him. At the end of the film we are left in a kind of confusing and sad state, we see Mike back in the same road, where he falls under ones of his narcolepsy spells, where he gets robbed and then picked up by a random car, this would have never happened if Scott was still with him, so at the end Mike never find his mother and looses his best friend and unrequited love.

 I think this movie is one of those, that needs to be watched at least twice, because at first the more blatant scenes take away from the underlying beauty of this film. So the second time you already know what to expect, and thus can concentrate on everything else that is beautiful about this film. All and all it stays with you, the sad beauty of it, it lingers.