Reality Bites-Ben Stiller
I remember the poster for this film being plastered everywhere in the 90s when it came out. Three young adults, two males with mysteriously disconcerting scowls sandwiching a giggling pixie who is implied as having a fun time juggling the emotions of her gentleman callers.
Certain films I hold above their deserved realm of revere simply from the nostalgic staple it has left upon my soul. Ones that are trashed universally by critics, but I love and cherish dearly simply for the fact that, when I pop the DVD in or select said title from streaming options, I am guaranteed a trip back down memory lane where everything from opening to closing credits is exactly as I remember it being. The Wizard, Friday The 13th Parts 1-7, Showdown In Little Tokyo, Suburbia, Halloween 3, and Ernest Scared Stupid are a few examples off the cuff.
And while I don't hold 90's throwback gems like Empire Records, Poetic Justice, Clueless, Boyz In The Hood, Hackers, and Chasing Amy as sacred as those as mentioned above, I can still appreciate them as good films that happen to capture a decade which I consider to be superior to both its pre and antecedents.
But if Reality Bites is considered to be the anthem of the confused 90's Generation X, I feel that it had failed abysmally.
This story sucked all over the map. It wasn't funny, the dialogue was shit, the music was terrible (sans Lisa Loeb), the characters were horrible, and the theme completely addled. It begins with the main character Lelaina (Winona Ryder), her class valedictorian—being filmed while hesitatingly delivering a commencement speech decrying the greed-implemented nature bequeathed to them from their baby-boomer forefathers in favor of independent thinking and shunning consumerism. And then every rebellious anti-societal character who rages against the grain goes on to espouse consumerism in several measures. Lelaina finds solace in 1-900-PSYCHIC hotline numbers and Big Gulps. Troy (Ethan Hawke) counts Quarter Pounders with Cheese and Camel Lights as some of the finer elements of life and steals Snickers bars from his workplace. Vickie (Janeane Garofalo) works at The Gap. And Michael (Ben Stiller) is a record executive and drives a BMW.
"Can you define irony?" Lelaina quips as a rhetorical question to Troy at a lunch counter.
Well gee, perhaps if the writers had stepped away to look at their overall story, maybe Lelaina would have gotten past that hurdle of the failed job interview where she—her class valedictorian, I remind you--was stumped at the suddenness of the request.
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*What—may I ask—the hell was the prerequisite median to achieve valedictorian status at her school if she can't even describe such a rudimentary word as irony?*
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Overall I'm not sure what is most disappointing about this film. Is it the massive failure of such an immensely talented cast to churn out this rubbish? The horrendous writing? The hypocrisy? Shitty dialogue? Annoying characters? Unrealistic and shallow storyline? Or just a coagulation of all the elements to create this heap of worthless celluloid?
Much like I feel Euphoria fails to hit the board from the bull of capturing this current generation's struggles with companionship, and how August: Osage County turned southern family turmoil into a poorly conceived mutation of The Beverly Hillbillies and The Sopranos, so too was this one way off the mark of what I remember the 90's to be.
Reality Bites was nothing more than a major studio's misguided attempt to cash in on the easily confused Gen-Xers who knew they had to be angry and sad about something but just didn't know what that something was.
I suppose the biggest things that stick in my craw are the haphazard treatment of their bodies (and ignorance of the inevitable bounty that follows) and the characters themselves. Troy Dyer, this misunderstood anti-hero of the film, has to be the biggest unintentional douchebag I think I have ever seen. And it speaks volumes to the ineptitude of the writers that I can't even come up with a contender. He was narcissistic, stupid (despite the attempts to paint him as an underrated genius), lazy, condescending, insecure, and overall just a shitty person. I mean, what the hell were the writers thinking? He freeloads off his friends after he gets fired from his job as a newsstand clerk. Has the audacity to chastise and humiliate his roommate when she comes home from a date. Treats houseguests of his friends as if they were idiots. Treats women as if they were dogs. Is a drama queen. And screws over the girl he proclaims to "love" because he doesn't know how to acclimate to the concept of sticking around for breakfast after he finally dupes her into sleeping with him. Then, the writers steal the same scene from Say Anything, only this time using a baggy suit and shabby suitcase instead of a boom box to proclaim the metaphorical depth of love.
Garbage.
And on a final note. I understand the pessimistic attitude that "Reality Bites", but would it have killed them to think outside of the box and realize that—even in your early 20s—a steady diet of Big Gulps and chain-smoking catches up to you? If we as the audience are led to believe (based upon the post-grad video on top of the skyscraper) that these characters' habits of smoking were not recently acquired, then there would have to be at least some form of blemish to be found from such a vast investment in self-destructiveness. You would think there would be love handles, tightened skin, bags under the eyes, or even yellowed teeth for Pete's-sake. But no.
Reality Bites!
So let's just pretend that those things don't exist in the make-believe land of the delusionally beautiful and leave such inconveniences for the real world to deal with. Here in La La Land you can plow through a carton of smokes in a day, wash down Quarter Pounders with cheese and Snickers with Big Gulps, and wake up the following morning looking just like Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke at their youthfully aesthetic apexes. Where teeth are perfectly aligned, the skin is always perfect, and love handles happen outside of Houston city limits. Needless to say. No matter how spunky, cute, and heartbroken Lelaina was as the nucleus of this trainwreck, it wasn't even close to being a passable view.
Reality Bites, huh?
Well here's reality's response: your movie sucks.
Shame on Ben Stiller, Winona, Janeane, and Ethan. Y'all's caliber of talent was way beyond this crap.
Stars: 1/2*
Verdict: Pass
Cousins: Say Anything, Empire Records, Clerks, The Breakfast Club, Clueless