When Spokane Was on the Brink of the 90s Zeitgeist

Visiting my hometown is a dreary affair. (Just got back from an extended Memorial Day weekend visit.) Perhaps I’m reminiscing through rose-colored glasses, but I think Spokane was a cuter, cozier place when I was growing up. Cleaner, more charming, a little more aspirational in its desire to be a prosperous big city.

Spokane still retains some of its charm, in a grittier, hard-to-see-past-its-flaws way. It has the melancholic feel of a place that has been on the edge of really making it onto the map and mattering, only to lose steam time and again. Bustling trading post… One-time major railroad stop… Center of early twentieth century mining wealth… Birthplace of Father’s Day… Proud host of 1974 World Fair/Expo 1974… But now, kind of a dreary place awaiting its next better turn of fortune.

But in 1993, a really cool movie came out that highlighted its best qualities.

Back in the 90s as grunge was starting and the Northwest was getting on the national radar, movie director Jeremiah Chechik, coming of the success of 1989′s classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, took a quirky story and a cast of budding stars to film Benny and Joon in Spokane.

In the movie, a handsome young Aidan Quinn plays Benny, brother of Mary Stewart Masterson’s mentally disabled artist character Joon (Juniper). An ensemble of talented actors playing an eclectic circle of Spokanites went on to be famous, including Oliver Platt, William H. Macy, CCH Pounder, and Julianne Moore, ironically playing a has-been B-movie horror film actress-turned-waitress (at Spokane’s very-cozy Milk Bottle restaurant).

Most significant was the star turn by a young Johnny Depp, who plays Sam, a savant-comedian of the Buster Keaton/Charlie Chaplin school. Sam bonds with Mary Stewart Masterson’s character after he ends up being taken in by the brother and sister and, with his quirky ways, stirs up their sad existence.

Locations includes scenic shots along the Pend O’Reille River outside Spokane, downtown Spokane’s Riverfront Park, where Depp acts out an amazing spectacle of physical comedy with a hat, and the modest-but-charming, under-the-bridge-and-down-by-the-river neighborhood of Peaceful Valley. It’s the kind of movie that makes you reimagine your hum-drum hometown and think, “It’s actually really nice there!”

The movie would also make famous the big hit “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by the Scottish band The Proclaimers and have a great soundtrack that included music by Joe Cocker, John Hiatt, and pre-Pearl Jam/pre-Soundgarden Eddie Vedder/Cornell collaboration band Temple of the Dog.

The movie was a modest success and launched some great careers. Its cast, themes, and soundtrack seemed to capture the early-90s zeitgeist on film. It is a cute, but not overly-cutesy film that I enjoy every few years and like to mention to my friends who have questions about my hometown—ever the ambassador that I am.

Cute little place, isn’t it?

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