Reality Bites – Pass

Reality Bites (1994) is an American romantic comedy film directed by Ben Stiller. Worthy to note: it also happens to be his debut as a film director.

Lelaina (Winona Ryder) an aspiring videographer working on a documentary called Reality Bites about the lives of her friends and herself, all prime examples of the Generation X.

One of these friends is Troy (Ethan Hawke) who moves in with Lelaina and her roommate Vickie after losing his minimum wage job for stealing a candy bar.

He's a slacker, nihilist and plays in a grunge band at coffe-shops by night.

Lelaina on the other hand is more ambitious than this.

Although working as a production assistant to an obnoxious TV host she was aledictorian of her university, and hopes to be taken seriously for her work as a documentary film maker.

Obvious to everyone, including themselves, they're in love with each other but too stubborn/afraid of commitment to admit it.

Lelaina meets Michael (Ben Stiller) and they begin to date. He works at an MTV-like cable channel called "In Your Face", falls in love with Lelaine and wants to help her get her documentary get aired on his network.

The story is not particulary complicated and doesn't surprise. It's not hard to guess whether Lelaine goes for the "corporate" guy who honestly loves her but is a bit dull or the sensitive sarcastic life-long friend...

The film passes the test a few times, mainly when Lelaina and Vickie discuss their lives. While men are part of that discussion, most is about their jobs and their future and their aims in life in general. There aren't many strong female characters in "Reality Bites" but considering that the whole movie very much centers on Lelaina and her perspective it's forgivable. At least it says much more about the simplistic way the movie works, than any

Anyway, you have to cut the film some slack. As a romantic love comedy it doesn't try to build up complex likable characters all around.

The film does escape from a lot of the cliché problems most of these movies run into. Michael doesn't become the completely "bad" guy. He might be a bit boring but he is lovable and he genuinely tries to do the best for Lelaina.

While the main topic is obviously her trying to decide between the two men in her life, she spends a lot of the time thinking about her future and what she wants to achieve in her life, taking her dream very seriously.

The three main actors all help making this a worthwhile entertaining watch.

While it's certainly not a must, for 90s-nostalgist like myself it's probably the best this genre has to offer. It's for you to decide how much that means given the circumstances.

Verdict: Pass & Recommended