So this looks like the last of the films by River Phoenix that I will cover. He did appear in a number of other films before he died but it looks like they are all mediocre ones at best. This was directed by Gus Van Sant, and I have to confess that I haven’t watched any of his films before this, not even the very well-known Good Will Hunting. That is certainly a film that needs to be added to the list immediately.

Mike is a male prostitute who picks up customers on the street and suffers from narcolepsy. Whenever he is under too much stress, he experiences flashbacks of his childhood life with his mother and instantly falls unconscious. His best friend is Scott, another gigolo whose father is actually the city’s mayor. Both are members of a wider community of street riff-raff whose nominal leader is Bob, an older man who is a alternative father figure to Scott. From there, the film explores two plotlines: one in which Scott accompanies Mike as the latter searches for his mother. The other one examines Scott’s relationship with Bob and with his own real father as Scott has always asserted that he will only maintain his street lifestyle until he receives his inheritance at the age of 21.

This is another film that is very difficult to absorb, especially its two separate threads are so dramatically different in style. Mike’s half of the film feels like a more conventional drama though it’s still the more emotive of the two. He clearly knows that his mother was a very poor parent yet he can’t seem to help but long for her. He instinctively reaches back to the house he lived in with her as a child whenever he is stressed even as he finds it increasingly difficult to remember what it was really like or perhaps even if it was real. Scott’s story on the other hand has a whimsical, surreal feeling accompanied as it is by ren-faire music whenever Bob struts onto the scene. Indeed it’s deliberately made to feel Shakespearean as parts were adapted Henry IV. Though it too has a tragic twist, this half of the film is mostly fun and playful, taking great delight in language and pranks. Pairing these disparate halves makes it a very unique film but I’m not sure if it really works.

There are all kinds of other interesting bits in the film as well. One sequence feels almost like a documentary as various characters respectively talk about their first hooking experience. Instead of shooting sex scenes, Van Sant has the performers hold still in a series of suggestive and stylized poses. Mike’s admission that he is in love with Scott but the latter’s reminder that he is not actually homosexual and only has sex with other men for money is fascinating. Through it all, there’s a sense that while they are regarded as degenerate trash by respectable society they are a worthy brotherhood with their own sense of worth, in an honor-among-thieves sort of way. At the very least they seem to better know how to have fun compared to those in stilted suits and ties.

As creative as this is however I’m not that it gels together all that well as a film. I believe the more conventional approach of focusing solely on Mike’s half of the story might actually result in a better film, especially since River Phoenix’s performance is far better than that of Keanu Reeves. It does make for a cool experiment and that’s enough for me.