What do we think happened to Mike after the final scene in My own private Idaho were he was put into the car and driven away?

Aw, Mike was such a tragic character and why I was attracted to the kind of crowd he hung with in the movie. I dated, had sex and a few LTR with hustlers just like Mike because all I wanted to do was “fix” them.

Trust key, this never works out well in real life, dear. Once a hustler’s beauty fades there’s not much left.

I too wonder what happened to Mike and all the people like him.

I think he went off to help another family with small children, just like Mary Poppins!

He went off to get fucked in bareback porn by that guy that picked him up. Hopped him up on drugs and sold that ass till it wasn't worth much or the drugs took him. Just my assumptions when men pick up drugged up boys without questions.

r1 Good post. But do you feel Mike was different in some ways than the average hustler and may have improved his lot in life in time?

r2 Anythings possible I guess!😁

[quote]Obviously it is tricky in some senses to detach away from what happened to River Phoenix sadly just two years later

River isn’t the only one from this movie to die from a drug overdose, remember Rodney Harvey?

😲😲 Deeply sad r6

r3 Certainly that driver is unlikely to have altruistic motives.

He took the blue pill.

OP, the final scene is not real. It exists in Mike's mind - his own private Idaho.

That said, the original script version showed that the driver of the car was Scott; while a filmed scene made clear it was Mike's brother. The original script version is probably closer to "reality" - that Scott felt badly for abandoning Mike and helped him out as best he could later. Van Sant decided to leave it ambiguous and added that for all he knew, the driver was the love of Mike's life.

R10 has it.

The funny thing about ambiguity is that it's ambiguous.

Not ha ha.

Disneyland.

Yeah, I always thought the bad guy was the one who stopped and stole Mike's shoes. And then a friend, whether it was Scott or another Good Samaritan, got him safe again. I never thought he'd been scooped up by some Green River Killer and kept bound and gagged in a garage, though I would've loved to see him acting out that fetish with a John (instead of being the Dutch cleaning boy).

Pretty good movie but extraordinary performance by River. Wild to think what he would've become. Leo, perhaps.

Pass around gangbanged bottom at the Boise Zone.

What was the meaning of the house? Are we supposed to think he was taken there?

Cheers r10 I was not aware of that .Did the films director give a reason why he departed from the original scripted intent to have a clearer happy ending with Scott being behind the car pick up and go for ambiguity or was he overruled by the studios?

r13 Good post and there being a contrast between the wrongins who stole his footwear and then being rescued does in terms of the cinematic narrative make sense.

I had a friend who was put in a car once. And then he DIED.

R16, he simply said he thought the ending would be too "neat" if the identity of the driver was revealed. And while it's comforting to think that that person was always intended to rescue Mike, in reality there's no guarantee that they could in the long run. He was a very damaged person and there's only so much either Scott and/or Mike's brother could do. And it wasn't exactly like Scott and/or Mike's brother were contestants for Mr. Mental Health of 1991. Or any other year, for that matter.

What happened to Mike is exactly what happened to River Phoenix. Hustlers don't make old bones.

I like to think he was taken in by a nice Christian family that helped him get out of that lifestyle.

I always thought it was Mike coming back to pick Mike up, after having abandoned him in Italy.

He was picked-up by a caftan 'auntie' who wanted to turn him into a ruff trade houseboy. But when he came to, he had a PTSD episode and stabbed Mary 39 times.

Muu-muu survived, but was disabled and disfigured and pressed charges. Mike went to prison and was strangled by his cellmate, who after a seizure thought he was possessed by the Devil.

[quote] Did the films director give a reason why he departed from the original scripted intent to have a clearer happy ending

A: it’s a Gus Van Sant movie

[quote] he had a PTSD episode and stabbed Mary 39 times. Muu-muu survived, but was disabled and disfigured and pressed charges. Mike went to prison and was strangled by his cellmate, who after a seizure thought he was possessed by the Devil.

Plagiarist!

I like R23 outcome the bet. I want to believe it was a perfectly tailored white caftan festooned with printed poppies so the blood spatter didn’t show.

r23 Dramatic but grim!

r19 Fair comment. A fairytale happy ending would have been out of sync with the rest of the film and its style.

Fun fact River Phoenix's birth last name was Bottom, so his parents named him River Bottom. His parents were so fucked up.

R29 Holy shit, adult Joaquin and his mom have the same face

R29 Could have been worse. They could’ve named him “Insatiable.”

R30 and Rain, too. All three look so alike. Which....explains some things.

He went to the Viper Room and OD'ed

I had always assumed he was picked up by his older brother.

Thread reminds how much I always hated Scotty Favor. He’s hot, sure, but in the end he’s a flake and liar and a stooge, too. It’s not the fact that he doesn’t requite Mike’s romantic feelings—Scott is straight/G4P, and that’s fair enough—but that he turns out to be a shitty friend and a turncoat.

And I don’t believe Scott came back for Mike; that would be too bathetic for a Van Sant joint. If it was anyone benign and already-known to Mike (which I do not believe it was, but everyone has their own headcanon), then I’d say it was his brother/Dad/whatever from earlier in the movie.

I loved “My Own Private Idaho” it holds a special place in my heart as a young gayling because I LOVED hanging out with the young prostitutes I knew at the bars and how ethereally beautiful Keanu and River were then (Mary!) . They also had so much fun, broke all the rules, and lived right on the edge. Boston didn’t have a lot of hustlers, or any specific hustling bar back then- but there were definitely a bunch of gogo boys, Combat Zone, Leather bars etc. and my very hawt roommate at the time worked at Tower and would invite all these club characters home with us and try to seduce the straight(ish) rocker boys that worked with him. Whenever I was mistaken as a rent boy or propositioned by an older gay I took it as the highest compliment! Alas, I was a bit of a romantic prude in my youth, but the truth is it probably saved my life.

So when I finally got married, we decided to honeymoon in Portland and a construction crew was tearing out the reception at the hotel we had originally booked- my husband has asthma attacks, so we complained about all the dust. They moved us to a sister location and while I was there I tried looking up the name of the abandoned hotel in the movie to no avail. Lo and behold, I figured out the place we were staying at had since been renovated and renamed (The Sentinel) and after watching the movie again and seeing the same staircase abutting our door- realized they put us up in the very same room they filmed Keanu and Phoenix in.

I’d like to think River got sober, and instead of chasing the unreasonable and untenable fairytale of the “gay ideal” he finally learned how to love himself- so he doesn’t put keep putting himself into the dangerous or heartbreaking situations that gay life often presents to us. I

’m glad I did!

Here’s the hotel now.

I don't buy Scott picked him up either. I think it was clear Scott chose to return to his privileged hetero life and turned his back on the past. So, either it was Mike's brother/father, a kind stranger or a serial killer/rapist. Kind of terrifying to think of given how vulnerable Mike was due to his disablity.

Molested.

r37 Cheers thank you.