Reality Bites is a so-90s-it-hurts comedy/romantic drama directed by Ben Stiller and starring Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Steve Zahn, Janeane Garofalo, Stiller, Joe Don Baker, and Swoosie Kurtz.
Lelaina (Ryder), Troy (Hawke), Sammy (Zahn), and Vickie (Garofalo) graduate from college in Houston - Lelaina as valedictorian - and set about trying to...be adults, I guess? Kind of? Lelaina works as a production assistant for an impossibly cheesy morning news host (John Mahoney), and films her friends in her spare time, spinning the footage together into a documentary-ish sort of thing. Does she want to be a documentarian? Not really, she just kind of wants to be an artist. Likewise, Troy fronts a band. Does he want to be a musician? Not really, he just kind of wants to be in a band. Sammy's life status is unclear, other than "gay, but closeted because he doesn't want to come out to his parents," and Vickie works retail and goes in for casual sex, though she doesn't seem happy about it.
In case it's not clear, I realized I hated all of these people within about the first 10 minutes of the movie. It doesn't happen much that I hate the whole cast so much and so quickly.
But then in comes Michael (Stiller)! Michael is a young TV producer who works for "MTV yet edgier" In Your Face (kinda TMZ-ish, actually). He starts up a relationship with Lelaina, and winds up showing one of her tapes to the network, they love it, want to air it, but they cut it to pieces, make it edgy (and dumb), and of course she's furious and betrayed. Also, she and Troy have been in love forever and never quite manage to do anything about, nominally because they're best friends but mostly, I suspect, because Troy is a legitimately terrible person and Lelaina has eyes.
Of course, this being a rom-whatever, she eventually takes leave of her good sense, bangs Troy, leaves Michael, and then starts a relationship with Troy, which is where the movie ends, them living together in an apartment (how are they affording it? Have they resolved any of their very real issues? WHO KNOWS YOU SAY I ONLY HEAR WHAT I WANT TO).
I know that this movie is kinda regarded as a voice of my generation, and maybe that's why I hate it so much. I think it's possible that if I had seen this movie when it came out (1994, when I was 20), and I was angry all the time and utterly convinced of how smart I was in comparison to everyone else but also full of self-loathing so rich and creamy you could spread it on a bagel that I might have identified. But honestly, like, these people are awful. Vickie and Sammy are the best of them, but that's mostly because they don't have much to do. Sammy has one pivotal scene where he comes out to his mother (and we see the fallout), and Vickie has an arc where she's afraid she's contracted HIV, but it never really goes anywhere.
Meanwhile, our main characters, Lelaina and Troy...man. They both want to make art, but they don't want to put in the work. Lelaina even calls Troy out on it - if you want to be in a band, then fucking practice, all the time, bust your ass getting gigs, make it work, but she does the same thing. She makes her tapes, but then doesn't even check to see what's being done with the material before it debuts? She must have signed a contract, right? Hell, Wayne's World was more on point than this.
And then there's Troy's general attitude. Supposedly he's a genius, but he dropped out of college before getting a philosophy degree, and now he's been fired from a dozen odd jobs, so like, he's a 20-something slacker who can't hold a job, is convinced of his own intelligence, studied philosophy, and plays in a grunge band. I was actually annoyed that he made it through the movie without anyone punching him, because he's a sarcastic, arrogant, borderline-abusive dirtbag who we're meant to think is a tortured artist, I guess?
Anyway, it's taken us weeks to watch this, because every time we scheduled it evening would roll around and one of us would suggest doing something else that we really wanted to do. But rules are rules. Now it's done, thank goodness, on we go.
My Grade: F
Rewatch Value: IINSIAIFWT
Next up: Rebel Without a Cause
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