"Feeling Minnesota" is difficult to fit neatly into a film genre. First-time director Steven Baigelman called it a "film noir-style black comedy." Keanu, who didn't like it at all when he first read the script, called it "very harsh" and later saw it as a romance. Film reviewers weren't quite sure either. Was it a "quirky drama about complex family dynamics"? A grim romance? A road comedy? Dumb and dumber in Minnesota? Whatever it was, Siskel and Ebert gave it "two thumbs up," the only major reviewers who liked it. Perhaps Baigelman summed it up best: "It's not boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. It's more like boy meets girl, has sex, finds girl's dead body, and buries her. That sort of thing." O-kay.

I just know I saw a lot of stupidity and violence, where most of the major characters wound up dead or in jail, or in an embrace outside of a Las Vegas nightclub, inexpicably in a happy ending.

FM was an independent film by Danny DeVito's Jersey Films, the same company that brought movie audiences "Pulp Fiction" and "Get Shorty." Fine Line Pictures came on board after Keanu signed. Production was a nine week shoot starting in April, 1995 and ending with added footage from Las Vegas in June, 1995. It was released to 869 screens on September 13th, 1996 from a previously announced date of February of that same year. Its premiere party was held in Los Angeles at Mann's Theater, not in its ornate main room, but in its side annex. The guests struggled for words after the show, often just shrugging their shoulders when asked for a comment. It came in 12th the first week and ultimately made $3.1 million domestically. It was released to video on February 11th, 1997 and is now shown repeatedly on TNT late at night.

The screenplay was written and developed by 34 year old Baigelman at Sundance Institute. He got the title from a song called "Outshined" by Soundgarden, which had the lyrics: "I just looked in the mirror, things aren't looking so good. I'm looking California and feeling Minnesota." After their first meeting, Keanu and Baigelman hit it off, both with Toronto backgrounds, and what Baigelman called Keanu's "straightforward" approach to picking films. The director said "Unlike others who go through preliminaries, through agents, lawyers, and half-way commitments, [Keanu] liked the script, had a meeting, two days later said he'd like to do it and never stepped away from the project." The director also commented that after working with Keanu, "I wouldn't claim to know him very well. I don't get a strong impression of what his life is about." That's okay, I don't usually have one either. Keanu was paid $200,000 for a movie with a budget of $10 million. Los Lobos wrote the score and the movie begins and ends with the same song, "Ring of Fire," performed by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. The supporting cast was certainly interesting, with Delroy Lindo, playing evil well, Dan Aykroyd, playing slime well, Courtney Love, playing compassion well, and Tuesday Weld, well, I didn't even know she was still acting! Cameron Diaz was acting in only her second movie ("The Mask" was her first) and on the first day on the set she had to do the bathroom scene with Keanu.

The studio decided to start Baigelman off slowly, giving him on his first day of shooting, a skeleton crew, Keanu, and the opportunity to film a montage of his star walking around Minneapolis. It was never used in the film.

The reviews were crushingly negative. And with most I would agree, especially about the harshness of the movie. The Baltimore Sun had my favorite line: "Battling Bros with the IQ's of pet rocks." The Washington Post remarked "if there is a point to FM it must have fallen on the cutting room floor somewhere." I was annoyed at many things in the movie. The police are told on the phone there was a murder. They go to the motel, find blood and a girl on the bed who isn't moving and never check her pulse. And how many adults don't know that a dead body grows cold and rigid? Well, Jjaks didn't seem to notice that Freddie was still warm when he buried her in the pile of leaves. And don't get me started with the ear fight. Ughhhh! Its hard to watch people being so self-destructive on a path leading to nowhere. You want to get up and smack them and yell "grow up!", a la Dr. Phil on Oprah.

But then you have to remember some of the other scenes. This was Keanu's first full-blown sex scene. And does anyone faint more adorably than him? I thought Freddie was a very strong female lead surrounded by very angry, violent men. And I thought Keanu gave a good performance. Besides looking scruffy and sexy as hell, Jjaks was a very "naturalistic" performance for Keanu. Baigelman said this role came closest to what Keanu is like in real life: "strong, centered, passionate, sweet, and hopeful." Sounds like Keanu to me.

But Jjaks was also a man who made all the wrong decisions, and through poor choices, led a life of crime, got caught, arrived to see his mother drop dead in front of his eyes, was beaten, bitten, shot, and had a bad hair day at the end of the movie. Still, you couldn't keep your eyes off of him and desperately wanted him to be okay. So I continue to watch FM from time to time, but usually with dismay at the glimpse into the brutality of some peoples' lives. The balcony is now open.