I Finally Get River Phoenix
I watched Running on Empty and had a lot of feelings.
As a pop culture obsessed kid, I loved watching E! True Hollywood Story. It didn’t matter if I had any familiarity with the celebrity being discussed…if E! told me I needed to know about them, then I was ready and willing to learn. I have a distinct memory of my mom yelling at me to stop watching a Roy Orbison episode (it may have actually been Behind the Music, but they were kind of the same show) and go outside. I suppose she had a point that preteens probably shouldn’t watch quite so much television about celebrity downfalls, but I feel like I had the last laugh here because who knows a lot about Roy Orbison’s life now? That’s right, me.
The episode that imprinted on me more than any other was the one about River Phoenix’s tragically short life. I’m just slightly too young to have developed an in-real-time crush on River Phoenix, so this episode was where I learned who he was. It’s also where I learned what heroin was. In fact, this episode and the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Basketball Diaries encompassed pretty much all of my fear-based drug education…forget DARE. The episode was pretty horrifying in a lot of ways and cemented many of my core personal beliefs: that being famous sounds awful, that drugs sound awful, and that Johnny Depp’s club The Viper Room sounds awful. I also learned so many terrible things about the religious cult River’s family was in and how much abuse he suffered, and now I feel very sympathetic toward Joaquin (seriously, let him give as many weird speeches as he wants, let him be vegan, who gives a shit).
But I hadn’t actually seen a River Phoenix movie until a couple of weeks ago when I watched Running on Empty. My favorite movie newsletter The Reveal (sorry to talk about The Reveal every week, but it’s great!) mentioned it briefly in a post about CODA. Scott Tobias argued that while CODA shares many similarities with the 1988 Sidney Lumet film (they’re both about a kid who wants to go to music school but runs into problems with their family), Running on Empty is the superior film because the stakes are much higher. As you know, I’m not a CODA hater (more like an “It Would’ve Been Better for CODA if it Didn’t Win That Oscar-er”), but I was intrigued by this description, and also I automatically like a movie better if it was released between 1970-1996. It was leaving the Criterion Channel at the end of April so it seemed like another example of movie fate.
River Phoenix plays a high school kid whose family is in hiding and perpetually on the run. His parents, played by Judd Hirsch and the luminous Christine Lahti, are anti-war protestors who once blew up a building and accidentally killed a janitor who wasn’t supposed to be there. Whenever the FBI gets too close, the family has to immediately leave town, contacting their vast, secretive network via payphone (I miss you, payphones) and starting over somewhere else with fake names and low-profile jobs.
I saw this Letterboxd review and I can’t stop thinking about it because this didn’t once occur to me throughout the entire film.
River Phoenix couldn’t be low profile if he tried. Not only does he have that hair and those glasses (most of the clothing in this movie is perfectly in style right now), but it turns out he’s also an amazing pianist. His music teacher realizes he’s talented and pushes him to apply to Juilliard. The problem, of course, is that his family is living a lie and you can’t really get into Juilliard by telling them your old school burned down and you don’t have any of your records.
His music teacher invites him to come over and practice on his piano, since River Phoenix doesn’t have a piano at home (pianos, in general, aren’t conducive to a life on the run). While he’s there, he meets the music teacher’s daughter, played by Martha Plimpton, and the two of them develop tentative crushes on each other (how would you feel if River Phoenix suddenly materialized in your living room??).
The entire film is about River Phoenix’s desires (an education, a girlfriend, knowing his grandparents, any kind of stability) and how they are in complete opposition to the way he has to live his life because of his parents. I’m sure this movie would’ve been great if I watched it as an actual teenager, but I was two years old in 1988 and not really interested in the works of Sidney Lumet. But watching it now, as a mom…well, I sobbed on my couch. Just imagine, feeling like you can’t give your kids everything they want all because you once blew up a building like twenty years ago. Not a relatable feeling in itself, but who among us doesn’t feel like we’ve done something wrong as a parent (again, probably not blowing up a building as a form of anti-war protest).
There’s a lot of emotion in this movie, but it isn’t ever cheesy or overwrought. While there are some closeups, a lot of the shots stay wide, letting us watch the characters from a distance as we draw our own conclusions about their feelings. It was nice to watch an incredibly emotional movie that doesn’t beat the viewer over the head with music or tears to let them know how to feel. After River Phoenix kills it at his Juilliard audition, we see him running jubilantly through the street. At first, you can’t even tell where he is, until he zigzags into frame. When he shows up at his music teacher’s house for a recital (one his parents explicitly tell him not to go to, since it risks garnering too much attention), we simply watch him show up and hover on the right side of the screen. There’s a level of trust and confidence in the viewer, as if Sidney Lumet assumes you’re going to get it just fine without belaboring the point. And you do!
Even in the most emotional of scenes, like when Christine Lahti meets with her father after years of being in hiding, there’s remarkable restraint. Yes, she’s crying, but they’re in public, at a fancy restaurant, so she has to keep it together. And in the ending, when (spoiler alert) Judd Hirsch tells River Phoenix that they’re leaving him behind when they run off to another town, letting him find his grandparents and go to Juilliard and live a normal life, there aren’t any hugs. There’s no big emotional speech. His family has to get on the road, and their one concession is to drive the truck in a circle around River on his little bike, and then they’re off. Who knows when they’ll see each other again.
Some stray thoughts:
-I spent most of my childhood thinking of Christine Lahti as just some lady who was on Chicago Hope, and only over the last couple of years have I realized she’s actually an incredibly complex and talented actress who had a lot of weird roles. In Housekeeping (which I loved), she plays a transient aunt. Here, she plays…a transient mom. Do not attempt to keep Christine Lahti in one house/town, because she simply won’t stay put! Anyway, now I’m a Christine Lahti fan. Please hold as I change my Twitter handle to ChristineLahtiFan08.
-There is a scene in Running on Empty set to James Taylor’s Fire and Rain (which is then echoed during the ending) that just gave me all sorts of emotions. It’s during a birthday party and the whole family, plus Martha Plimpton, dance around the house. And then, at the end, that song plays again as the family drives away, leaving River Phoenix all by himself to start over.
-This is not an insult in any way to River Phoenix’s acting skills, but I couldn’t help but wonder…did Bruce McCulloch base any of his acting decisions on River Phoenix? Like, being sullen with floppy hair and a flannel? That’s pure Bruce McCulloch.
This is also not an insult to Bruce McCulloch, who is by far my favorite KITH and maybe my favorite Gilmore Girls guest star (he’s why I named a character Tobin in Waiting for Tom Hanks).
-The Jackson Browne song Running on Empty doesn’t actually appear in this movie but it is stuck in my head now.
-Naomi Foner, the writer of Running on Empty, is Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s mom! In my research (looking at the IMDB trivia section), I discovered that Jake sat in on two weeks of rehearsals as a six year old. What a life for those Gyllenhaals!
-This little IMDB trivia made me laugh: River Phoenix's birth name is River Jude Bottom. So this movie has a Judd and a Jude. It sure does! Thank you, whoever added this information.
That’s it for this week! Maybe I’ll watch another River Phoenix movie (although, given that the entire reason I’ve avoided Stand By Me my whole life was because that E! True Hollywood Story made me too sad to watch it, we’ll see). Last week I saw both Jerry Maguire and All the Real Girls for the first time and my emotions have been put through the wringer! I love movies!!! I watched them in the least ideal circumstances (Jerry Maguire streaming through TBS with commercials, All the Real Girls free on Tubi with the most depressing iPhone slot machine game commercials I’ve ever seen in my life), and they were still wonderful experiences. Anyway, expect something on one of those films next week. See you then.
So 3 years later are you still a fan?
You must watch Stand by Me! It is heavy but there is so much to it and the acting, so incredible. My love of Will Wheaton started there.