Most critics respond warmly to My Own Private Idaho, with praise clustering around River Phoenix’s vulnerable, convincing performance and Van Sant’s visual imagination. Even less persuaded reviews find Phoenix compelling as Mike, a narcoleptic young hustler seeking affection and shelter. Supporters value the tenderness towards the characters, the attention to loneliness and the freedom from conventional plotting. Several also find humour in the film’s drifting encounters and abrupt changes of tone.
The spread is wide, with the film’s formal experiments producing the sharpest disagreements. Time Out sees its mixture of surreal imagery, documentary inserts and Shakespearean echoes as holding together despite the abundance of ideas. Empire finds the script awkward and the Shakespearean detour ill-advised. The New Yorker admires the ambition but finds the result schematic and short on emotional complexity, making clear that Phoenix’s performance commands broader agreement than the film around him.