My Own Private Idaho is no less conceptual than most of the Van Sant films to follow it, with the exception of the director’s uncharacteristically anonymous Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester. But this film lives and breathes in a manner that’s rare in the director’s filmography, exuding a feeling of ever-shifting elusiveness, of Van Sant catching something up in his nets that he doesn’t entirely understand, but is too wise to discard.
— link title (Slant Magazine)
Synopsis: 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.