Viking Night: Reality Bites
By Bruce Hall
February 3, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com

That is *not* the proper way to play with a slinky.
When a director casts himself in a movie, you learn a thing or two about him. In the case of Woody Allen, I usually take it to mean he’s really into younger women. Much younger women. In the case of Reality Bites, I take it to mean that Ben Stiller is a guy who’s really aware of himself. In this, his directorial debut, he casts himself alongside one-time squeeze Janeane Garofalo and as a suitor to the inimitably adorable Winona Ryder. I consider this a wise move. If I were allowed to direct a movie, I too would immediately cast an ex-girlfriend and then make her watch me make out with Winona Ryder. But this is because I have a tendency to become drunk with power whenever I have it. Stiller, as I have suggested, is a smarter man than I am.

Reality Bites is based on an original story by (then) first time screenwriter Helen Childress, which is in turn based (to some degree) on her own life events. Because of this, and the year in which it was released, this makes the film for many a spiritual successor to St Elmo’s Fire. Every decade seems to require its own artistic interpretation of the same things, and apparently growing up in your 20s is no exception. Both movies became minor cultural and generational touchstones; the big difference being that Reality Bites is famous for being kind of entertaining, and St. Elmo’s Fire is only famous because of who’s IN it.

That said, if you’re a fan of the coming-of-age genre, or are into acting like you’re the only person on earth with problems, Reality Bites should feel like familiar turf. Winona Ryder is Lelaina, an idealistic valedictorian who hopes to one day change the world through the power of documentary filmmaking. Ethan Hawke is Troy Dyer, a prototypical Gen-X slacker (or what today would be called a “hipster douche”) whose ample intelligence is more than offset by a complete and utter lack of ambition. Janeane Garofalo is Vickie Miner, Lelaina’s best friend and Troy’s consistent runner up in the How to Get Ahead in Life Without Trying sweepstakes. And then there’s Sammy (Steve Zahn), whose defining character trait is pretty obvious, but I won’t ruin it for you here.

Having been friends all through college, the four end up more or less living together in the house Lelaina and Vickie rent in semi-suburban Houston. Troy is a chronically unemployed musician who thinks the world should throw him a parade for having above average intelligence. Vickie deals with problems by sleeping with as many men as she possibly can and keeping a detailed, kaleidoscopic bang-diary of her conquests. Winona toils away as a production assistant on an insipid morning show, her obvious talent going unappreciated by her cynical, demanding boss. And Sammy kind of hangs around on the periphery of the story, being really friendly and looking really out of place. Lelaina more or less supports the tribe while everyone else spends their free time getting high and drinking the kind of beer you can only afford when someone in the house has a job on TV.

This is how they roll until a minor fender bender introduces Lelaina to Michael Grates (Stiller), a mid-level executive at a smarmy basic cable channel that is in no way modeled after MTV. For those too young to remember, MTV was a smarmy basic cable channel that played music videos. Music videos are what record companies use to use to convince you to buy records. Records were giant plastic discs that were used to listen to music before you could just steal it off the internet. Anyway, Michael and Lelaina become enamored with each other because they’re socially awkward people who I assume have been sexually active for a combined total of nine minutes in their entire lives. This is to the chagrin of Troy, who not so secretly pines for Lelaina, and believes Michael to be sub-humanoid yuppie scum. This causes friction within the Gang, but it’s the kind of domestic strife that’s easy to weather as long as the bills are being paid.

So of course Lelaina loses her job, going from breadwinner to deadbeat in the time it takes Troy to smoke a bowl and write a song about the inexorable downward spiral of the human condition. As Lelaina’s career flounders, her friends face their own challenges - a health scare, a death in the family, a struggle for social acceptance - and in this maelstrom discontent, she finds new creative inspiration. Of course, this is all a concentrated representation of what most of us feel when we first face the world as independent adults. One way or another, we all develop expectations of what the world is like, and what our lives are going to be like in that context.

And then, reality bites. Get it? It’s a double entendre.

Or at least, that’s the way this guy interprets it. Obviously, when movies attempt to humanize any kind of universal struggle, to some degree it’s going to be made - and seen - through a generational prism. The rocky road to maturity one we all have to travel, and it’s longer for some than for others. Not only that, even though we all make the trip, the nuances really do differ over time. It’s hard to learn to let go of unrealistic expectations, to trust the people you love as they change, grow, improve or disappoint you, and to accept the fact that you’re never going to be as awesome as you thought you were the day you graduated. It’s especially difficult to cram all that into a movie, even more so when it’s a comedy - which usually means you have to keep it short.

So both Childress and Stiller deserve a lot of credit for making it work in a movie that, like others of its kind, suffers a bit from its own quirks. There are predictable nods to hot button social issues of the day, and while they do add a pinch of depth to the story, I don't know that they add much credibility. Those who can remember a time when cellphones were a wonky affectation of the wealthy will be amused. And anyone who's ever used Dad's gas station card to swindle cash will quietly thank God they never got caught. The rest of you may remain as mystified by this as you are by all the mullets, shoulder pads and unpleasant color combinations.

Like most decades, the ‘80s took a while to go into remission.

Still, Reality Bites manages to toe the line between cloying and entertaining well enough to be mostly the latter, and just enough of the former to be moderately heartwarming. Hawke and Ryder are particularly good, straddling the line between self-absorbed teen and reflective adult not just because they're talented, but because they literally fit the part. And as I mentioned earlier, as a director Stiller is smart enough to find a role for himself, yet stay out of his own way. You could definitely find worse ways to spend an hour and a half of your life.

Like most genre films, this one is somewhat a relic of its time, but I'm happy to say it was a pretty good time.