Reality Bites

I rented this movie knowing it wasn't really a comedy but a drama about the life of people in their early twenties in the 90's. What pushed me to rent it was the fact that many people qualified this film as horrible, but many other people loved this film and were talking about it like it was the most realistic thing ever.

Let's face it. I'm not going to pretend to know what it's like to be a teenager/young adult in the 90's since I was 9 years old when this movie came out. However, I think I have a good enough judgement to tell if this movie was realistic or not based on my personal experiences.

This movie isn't specially about the 90's, it's about "becoming an adult" and all it implies. It's about a cast of characters who hesitate between forever living what they were told is a pointless life [always having fun and bumming around] and becoming like the adults that they have criticized so much in their childhood. This, by itself, is very realistic, because it's a problem that many young people face even today. The main character Lalaina represents this fact completely. She's shooting a video of her friends as they struggle to find themselves in this world that was built by baby-boomers that they can't relate to. Also, she's a very clean-cut and hard working person, yet she hangs out with her friends who are more of the "rebellious" type.

This movie tries to represent the "alternative" crowd. Each character in this movie has an "alternative" as well as a "conformist" side, which is very strange. By example, you have a female character who wears vintage clothes and lives in a typical artsy room but works at the gap. This is another side of what was mentioning earlier. As young adults, they're straying away from the whole "alternative-ness" of their teenage years. This is something I've seen among people I know as well, and that I personally dislike. I guess it's something very typical of our era as well as the 90's.

What I found unrealistic in this movie was that the characters seem a bit cliché sometimes. Sure, I've seen people like that. But the personalities in the movie are too simplified. By example, there's the guy who always is slacking around doing nothing because he feels that having a full-time job until you retire is like wasting your life. Okay, but what else? What type of person is this guy, really? Also.. Each of the characters seem to act the way they do because they come from broken homes, which isn't very realistic in my opinion... The video that the main character has made is supposed to make their viewers know her friends and herself, but we don't really get to know them by watching the entire movie.

Overall, I thought it was an enjoyable movie. I liked the atmosphere of it. It also wasn't always predictable. I gave this movie a 7 because I liked it even though I disliked some of it's aspects.

I first saw this movie when it came out in the theaters and I was a teenager myself, and I remember feeling a just a little shortchanged and even dirty, like I'd been manipulated in a way. I did enjoy it, but the reasons for enjoying it do not hold up today. Watching it again has been fun because looking at it through adult eyes, I am having fun seeing how easy it is to spot the dated qualities and outmoded philosophies that, as one reviewer said, were pretty much defunct by 2000, or maybe even by 1995-6.

And it's not like I was some profound kid who had all this insight how mass media sells these ideas to young people...I bought into the whole "Seattle grunge" thing lock, stock and barrel, I thought guys with stringy unwashed hair and bad attitudes were totally hot, I wore crocheted vests, mood rings, and colored sunglasses with the best of them. So me thinking that something did not ring true must have been because it is pretty obvious that this movie is in essence a failure.

1. The characters-The movie works really hard to make Troy be the better option for Leilana. For teenagers, he was totally sexy to watch on screen and totally swoon worthy, but his utterly obnoxious attitude, his rudeness to Ben Stiller's character, and his bullying just came off as unpleasant at the least, and his philosophy for not working are textbook definitions of a narcissist. Hearing some of his pseudo intellectual discussions are painful and embarrassing, because it is clear that the movie feels that young Gen X'ers embrace and admire such outlooks unequivocally and at face value. And kids were supposed to identify with this person? What an inconsiderate person, to stand up Leilana's father for the job interview and lead her to blame herself, and to embarrass women around him for being attracted to him. Any good friend and countless therapists would advise against having him as a boyfriend. The sad few seconds devoted to his dying father are not enough to redeem him or "understand" him.

Bottom line, if Ethan Hawke was supposed to make this person somewhat sympathetic, he failed, or if he truly was supposed to be this unlikable, then good work.

Leilana did come off as sympathetic and overall was well played by Winona, and her beauty is the one of the few things in this movie with true staying power. Her character does some pretty awful things, though. When her boss rudely rebuffs her video ideas, she humiliates him on air. When her friend offers her a job, she snaps at her. Instead of swallowing her pride and working at the gap for a bit, she resorts to the embarrassing "gas card" scene, which we are supposed to think is cute and rebellious. It is totally unconvincing that a "valedictorian" would ever be so irresponsible and immature, even if she had fallen on bad times.

As for the other two, they are both well acted and likable, but seem to be added on simply to achieve a gritty "90's" edge, like HIV testing and coming out to your parents. Neither subplot is developed enough to give this movie the edge it craves. Both are attractive and funny, and Vicky especially projects a friendliness, sympathy, and is cute as hell in those throwback clothes.

2. The Michael stuff really is a failure. Ben Stiller did a good job acting in this movie and came across as warm and real, but this movie is his work too. I guess a simple plot device would have been to make him more arrogant from the get-go so that he could seem like the "bad guy" but that would have been cheap. Either way, the movie does seem like it's trying to convince you that he either "betrays" Leilana or "doesn't understand her" the way Troy does, and it doesn't work. Those two had a positive chemistry and seemed to complement each other as characters. To make this a true coming of age and growing up story, Leilana should have either chosen Michael, who emphasizes growing up, taking responsibility for your actions, and change for the better, or decided to be on her own for a while to become a more mature person.

3. The biggest failure of this movie, and in my opinion, the most dangerous, is how it elevates Troy's attitude as the noble one above all, as if being narcissistic and self-involved are desirable. Being that he is the hot guy of the movie and that the other characters seem to respond so positively to him, a young teenager is left with the message that this is the "new" way to be and that Michael's responsible and kind persona are "hypocritical" or "selling out." Leaving the theater back in '94, I was enjoying myself thinking about the romance between two good looking and stylish characters, but I couldn't really get into that part as much as I should have. Since I also really wanted to be cool and up to date, I was wondering if I should be acting or living like any of these characters, living in a flat with a guy who mooches off me, sleeping around with strangers, dancing at the gas station, etc. The movies have a lot more influence on young people than one thinks.

In my gut, I felt two things: a-My parents would be horrified if I brought friends like that around and more frighteningly, b-I secretly would agree with them.

I love this film; Ethan Hawke is brilliant and really does sum up the 'searcher' generation, the new Beat. Grunge in this film is typified by over-intelligent, under-achieving, dope induced philosophical musings and desire to make a difference but not knowing how to go about it in world where young people feel anonymous and disenfranchised and dealing with modern day issues; coming out, HIV tests, unemployment, friendship, love and life aspirations.

I think this is perfectly cast, loads of familiar faces, and I think this is my favourite role of Winona Ryder. Steve Zahn and Janeane Garofalo were great and the comedy, and Ben Stiller (who also directed) is good despite being an atypical role for him, and is one of his best roles. Ethan Hawke, however, is the deserved lead in this snapshot of reality, and a showcase of his band/singing. This is a well cast and performed ensemble cast production, and there are truisms left right and centre; it speaks to the heart & soul and is relevant to the 90s generation and I'm sure has relevance to later decades and has - IMHO - aged well. It is super-funny, touching and enlightening; something for everyone who's young enough and old enough. Even after 20 years it's one of my favourite films and watching it gives me such a warm feeling.

I really do have difficulty with the short shrift this film seems to get. Admittedly, Ethan Hawke's appaling "I'm nuthin'" doesn't really do the film any favours but that asides, Reality Bites always has me in tears. The basic storyline, centering on a love that both people know exist but due to circumstance and fear has not manifested is so universal, and so well done. The 'my life is falling apart' endless phone calls to the psychic 0900 number part is so tragi-comedic, and the entire movie is full of continuous great scenes. Admittedly, being a single 25 year old white male who originally saw the film a few years back, I was probably caught at the optimal time for it to have an emotional impact, but I find myself going back to it again and again. Winona has never been better, and Janeane Garofalo is stunning as the low self-esteem serial one night stander with the AIDS paranoia and over-full shag book. Also, great cameos from the Soul Asylum geezer and Evan Dando's stunning turn during the end credits add to the film. Overall a stunning film, admittedly which will probably only be appreciated by a relatively narrow demographic.

I really enjoyed this movie. Looking back in hindsight, I can see the selfishness of the characters, and I have read the complaints about this, but isn't that kind of the whole point of the movie? It's about people talking about not "selling out" while at the same time they ARE "selling out" in many different ways. They (the characters in the movie) are all consumers who satirize the very idea of "consumerism" but refuse to "stoop down to the level" of getting menial jobs to try and pay the bills. The movie defines for me how education isn't everything and from my own experience I have learned that sometimes the "great dream" (of being a writer, artist, musician, etc.) just doesn't pay the bills and in order to make decent money one may have to go into a field that is not originally their first choice as a means of employment. I remember being young and wistful, with dreams of being an artist, only to have to "settle" for an office job to make ends meet.

The movie does express what life was like for me at the time. I was a naive student with dreams of producing great artistic work, but who learned that what is taught in college as "reality" is not really reality at all. College students are fed with lofty artistic statements and philosophies and are taught to analyze endless aspects of society, ideals, etc., and are taught that "knowledge and education are power" but are not taught that credibility and respect are things which must be earned and that very few people actually start out at the top of the career ladder.

Overall, this continues to be one of my favorite films and I appreciate the myriad of messages that it sends, though they may, at times, be contradictory.