Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix - arguably the two biggest teen heart-throbs of the time - play hustlers Scott and Mike, whose sexual encounters with the bizarre denizens of Portland, Oregon bring them into contact with drug-dealer, pimp and Falstaffian anti-hero Bob (Richert), from whom they steal enough money to escape Scott's father (the Mayor) and go and find Mike's mother in Italy. Around this plot are woven several love stories, a father-son conflict straight out of Shakespeare, some documentary-style set pieces, and some very surreal film-making.

Phoenix's character Mike is narcoleptic (he falls asleep at moments of stress) and we see the world through his eyes - the excuse for sudden close-ups, technicolour panoramas, flash-backs and dream visions. His relationship with Scott (Reeves) won the film awards for its head-on addressing of the degrees and kinds of homosexuality - many other eyebrows were raised at the scene where Reeves and Phoenix appear as cover boys on porn mags and talk from the shelves. The high quality of the dialogue, the extraordinary range of characters and landscapes, and River Phoenix's most sensitive and demanding performance all make Idaho one of the strangest, most essential and most unforgettable films of the 1990s.

Sophie Levy