My Own Private Idaho

Fine Line Features | Release Date: October 18, 1991

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

77	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Vincent Canby

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

100

Desson Thomson

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

100

Dave Kehr

Beautifully wrought, darkly funny and finally devastating, My Own Private Idaho almost single-handedly revives the notion of personal filmmaking in the United States. [18 Oct 1991]

Jonathan Rosenbaum

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. Read full review

Hal Hinson

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. Read full review

Peter Travers

Before this trippy, mesmerizing movie swerves out of control, it delivers an exhilarating and challenging ride. Read full review

Jay Scott

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. Read full review

Roger Ebert

There is no mechanical plot that has to grind to a Hollywood conclusion, and no contrived test for the heroes to pass; this is a movie about two particular young men, and how they pass their lives. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

Van Sant casts a gently hypnotic spell that is not easily forgotten. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

It's a daredevil's ride that keeps you glued with fascination. Read full review

Lawrence O'Toole

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.

Kenneth Turan

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]

Mike Clark

Truth is, Idaho is nothing but set pieces; tossed into a mix whose meaning is almost certainly private. [27 Sept 1991]

EmpirePhilip Thomas

With a more accomplished script and an actor of rather more technical prowess than Reeves (nabbing the Prince Hal role), this may just have worked. Here, it is just squirmingly embarrassing stuff. Read full review

Richard Schickel

What plot it has is borrowed, improbably, from Henry IV, and whenever anyone manages to speak an entire paragraph, it is usually a Shakespearean paraphrase. But this is a desperate imposition on an essentially inert film. [28 Oct 1991]

Staff (Not Credited)

The Shakespearean side of the story falls short due to Reeves' very narrow range as an actor. Read full review

Terrence Rafferty

It's a beautiful disaster, like a bomb test out in the middle of nowhere. [7 Oct 1991, p.100]

Julie Salamon

This is all very strange and a little tedious. Yet there is something arresting and oddly poignant in Mr. Van Sant's playful vision of the road to nowhere. [3 Oct 1991, p.A14(E)]