Film Review: Reality Bites (1994)

“High concept” can be quite beneficial for films that would otherwise fail, but it could also harm them when it is too obvious. This happened to Reality Bites, 1994 romantic drama directed by Ben Stiller, a film whose authors weren’t hiding that intent to target one specific segment of the audience.

Protagonist, played by Winona Ryder, is Lelaina Pierce, aspiring young videographer who has recently graduated from college and lives in Houston, Texas. She shares apartment with group young friends, who are, like her, college graduates in early twenties and who, for the first time of their lives, must face the challenges of adult life. One of her friends is Troy Dyer (played by Ethan Hawke), young musician who refuses to take steady jobs, still preferring bohemian lifestyle. Another friend Vickie (played by Janeane Garofalo) has issues with promiscuous lifestyle, while Vickie’s friend Sammy Gray (played by Steve Zahn) is gay who has issues with coming out to his parents. Lelaina meets Michael Grates (played by Ben Stiller), executive at youth-oriented television channel and begins to date him, although she feels romantically attracted to Troy.

Although partially based on the real life of its author Heather Childress, script for Reality Bites was ultimately produced as typical Hollywood product directed at the audience in their twenties – demographic cohort which was supposed to start playing important part in America’s culture and economy. General idea was to make Reality Bites into a film that would speak for “Generation X” and do for it what films like The Graduate and American Graffiti did for Boomers decades ago. Everything in the film became subservient to this aim. That included cast made of young and (with the exception of Winona Ryder, then at the height of her popularity) relatively unknown actors who would later become big stars in 1990s, especially Ethan Hawke. Another ingredient for the commercial formula was the soundtrack that included songs of popular bands at the time, very much like in Singles, although, unlike that film, content included genres broader than grunge.

Ben Stiller, at the time known mostly as comic and for his work on television, handled his feature directorial debut well. However, even the director with more experience and talent would have problems elevating formulaic content of Childress’ script which, even with weak attempt of social and cultural commentary, looks like collection of cliches that include romantic triangle, a subplot that would be resolved in predictable fashion, with heroine choosing anti-establishment rebel over “safe” yuppie. From perspective of today’s twentysomethings Reality Bites would be problematic over the lack of racial diversity, the very same issue that today haunts Friends, another 1990s product that used the similar formula with much more success on television. Childress’ script try to be “politically correct” by addressing the issue of HIV and homophobia, but this looks more like an afterthought than serious attempt to capture true spirit of 1990s in urban America. In the end, Reality Bites underperformed at the box office and the critics weren’t particularly enthusiastic. Over the years, it received something of a minor cult status, mostly fuelled by GenXers’ feeling towards their youth and the ways Hollywood had tried to exploit. For audience without nostalgia towards the period, Reality Bites offers potentially interesting glimpse into the past era and hardly anything more.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/2788-reality-bites
Critic: AA