Reality Bites *** (1994, Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, John Mahoney, Steve Zahn) – Classic Movie Review 6661

Director Ben Stiller’s 1994 directorial debut Reality Bites is a genial, youth-oriented romantic comedy drama that is pleasant and entertaining even if it is written with perhaps not quite enough reality or bite.

Winona Ryder stars in a good role for her as college valedictorian Lelaina Pierce, who graduates from college with a group of Houston buddies in a Nineties Generation X world where expectations are high but prospects are low. She camcords her circle of friends in a mock documentary film of their troubled lives in the big wide world after education.

Lelaina loses her TV continuity job, but falls for the earnest but materialistic video executive Michael Grates (Ben Stiller, co-starring as well as directing), who takes the video she is making about her friends to his MTV-style TV station and commercialises it.

Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder in Reality Bites (1994).

Ethan Hawke plays Lelaina’s best friend, the cool but uncultivated music slacker Troy Dyer, who will have to drop the mask of indifference he is wearing if he has a chance of winning Winona’s Lelaina. Janeane Garofalo plays the Gap clothes store manager Vickie, concerned over the result of an AIDS test, while Steve Zahn plays Sammy, who is struggling with his sexuality.

As for Lelaina, the choice is of course going to turn out to be between the yuppie or the slacker. So, this is basically very old fashioned material, glossed over with what is supposed to be Nineties polish (the mentions of AIDS testing, the Gen X graduates working in clothes stores or burger bars). But, though Reality Bites is so déja vu, it is also pleasing, often funny and occasionally a little charming too, and the performances are always amiable. Ryder proves her star quality (happily back to the present day after a run of period films), Hawke is fine, and Stiller, Garofalo and Zahn are all good.

Helen Childress’s screenplay is not as incisive or clever as it needs to be, and no actor (certainly not Hawke) needs the line ‘there’s a planet of regret sitting on my shoulders’, but it is still okay. The video sequences dim Reality Bites but lively pop tracks brighten it.

John Mahoney plays Grant Gubler in Reality Bites.

John Mahoney plays Grant Gubler. Also in the cast are Swoosie Kurtz, Joe Don Baker, Renée Zellweger, James Rothenberg, Eric Morgan Stuart, Barry Sherman, Harry O’Reilly and Susan Norfleet.

Reality Bites is shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, produced by Danny DeVito and Michael Shamberg for Jersey Films, scored by Karl Wallinger and designed by Sharon Seymour.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6661

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