X
- 1994
- PG-13
- Universal Pictures
- 1 h 39 m
- 1994
- PG-13
- Universal Pictures
- 1 h 39 m
Summary A documentary filmmaker and her fellow Gen X graduates face life after college, looking for work and love in Houston.
Directed By: Ben Stiller
Written By: Helen Childress
- 1994
- PG-13
- Universal Pictures
- 1 h 39 m
- 1994
- PG-13
- Universal Pictures
- 1 h 39 m
Reality Bites
67
7.7
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Summary A documentary filmmaker and her fellow Gen X graduates face life after college, looking for work and love in Houston.
Directed By: Ben Stiller
Written By: Helen Childress
Where to Watch
Coming Soon
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
67
69% Positive
18 Reviews
18 Reviews
23% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
8% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
67
69% Positive
18 Reviews
18 Reviews
23% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
8% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
The great thing about Reality Bites is that each of the characters comes across as real, and not some glib concoction by a screenwriter who's watched them from a cloistered distance. Childress obviously knows their world inside out, and shares it with insight and a prickly, original wit. [18 Feb 1994, p.C1]
The movie ultimately plays as a dead-on snapshot of the much-maligned post-Baby Boomer generation. In 10 years, Reality Bites might seem dated and irrelevant. Right now, it feels remarkably astute. [18 Feb 1994, p.G5]
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 25 User Ratings
7.7
84% Positive
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
16% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 25 User Ratings
7.7
84% Positive
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
16% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
Dec 8, 2024
I sat down with this one expecting an embarrassingly dated, pretentious peephole into the flightiest years of the 1990s. And while, okay, that’s not always very far from the truth, I was also surprised to find something a little more substantial: wit, truth and ennui. An emphatically even-handed rendition of four wide-eyed kids at the onset of their post-college years, Reality Bites depicts each character as flawed, uncertain and lost. Adrift without a safety net for the first time in their lives, the cast alternates between selfish and idealistic, making big mistakes in their personal, professional and romantic lives but also, sometimes, realizing it and growing from the experience. Often confidently wrong, these twenty-somethings are catty and dramatic, prone to rash decisions and emotional blow-ups but also big enough to eventually admit their shortcomings and offer the olive branch. I don’t like any of them, really, but I can relate. I probably wouldn’t have thought too highly of myself at the same age, either.
There’s a lot of heavy-handed romantic turmoil here, given the tempestuous love triangle between the beautiful people in the eye of the storm. Fickle Winona Ryder, at the height of her pixie cuteness, must pick between the irritable, poetic genius she’s secretly admired for years (a grungy Ethan Hawke) and the supportive, dim-witted new guy (Ben Stiller, in a suit and bad Morrissey hairstyle) who doesn’t embody her rebellious counter-culture ethos but offers emotional and financial stability. That material can be wearying, especially as Ryder flimsily dodges several uncomfortable make-a-choice moments, but her indecision is understandable given the guys’ tendency to sabotage themselves and her character seems to hem and haw over everything anyway. Decision paralysis is real, particularly for someone who thinks they’re in so far over their head, and Ryder's character is living proof. I don’t think she makes the right choice in the end, but at least she does make a choice.
An anthem of sorts for jaded, cynical Generation Xers as they entered the workforce, Reality Bites was appropriately painted with the same brush as Cameron Crowe’s preceding film, Singles. This iteration might be missing the hip, fashionable Seattle soundtrack that buffed its predecessor, but it’s loaded with the same frustrated, angsty attitudes about life, love and the empty promise of adulthood. The humor is keen and sharp, the squishy romantic bits mildly excessive but not unbelievable, and the core message is loud and true: no matter how much they may have convinced you (or themselves) otherwise, nobody really knows what they’re doing at this point in their life.
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Jul 9, 2024
It definitely got it right that the reality in this, jobs, careers, dentists, etc. does indeed ****.
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Reality Bites principally turns on the romantic tension between Ryder, wonderfully radiant and not all that literate for the class valedictorian her character is purported to be, and Hawke, who does the alienated-poet thing better than anybody since Matt Dillon's greaser in "The Outsiders."
The best -- the brilliant -- bits of Reality Bites etch in epigram, anecdote and brittle, dazzling dialogue the inner life of young people who want desperately to believe but haven't decided in what. It loves them but it doesn't pity or sentimentalize them. It's tough as nails.
Childress has an ear for dialogue that rings true even when it's self-consciously movie-ish, and Ryder and Hawke bring crucial authenticity to their roles with effortless appeal. You'll find yourself wanting more of these characters than the movie gives you.
By Jeff Shannon
FULL REVIEW
The performances are all just fine; I wish they'd been at the service of another movie.
Reality Bites embodied seemingly every odious post-Nirvana media trend. The title alone was laughably faux-hip, and the movie's portrait of slackerdom—limply enacted by Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Steve Zahn, and Janeane Garofalo—was both broad and shallow...No one acknowledges the obvious—that a heinous idea got even worse when Stiller signed on to direct.
Jan 15, 2020
Reality Bites is an interesting film. It's almost more of a time capsule of zeitgeist than a movie! I don't think I've ever seen anything nail the grungy, early 1990s views of Generation X more perfectly. Ben Stiller is a surprisingly competent director, and the performances of Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder are top notch. There are some really dated elements to this movie, and there are several pacing and storytelling issues that hold it back from it's full potential, but if you are interested in any of these artists or the mentality of young people in the early 1990s, you got to give this one a watch!
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Apr 2, 2019
Hard And Simple.
Reality Bites
Stiller's hip and happening love track for the younger audience is mature on projecting the hardcore truth of a 20s lifestyle where the troubles are dug up if they don't exist. From practically fumbling and often cheesy conversation to a gripping screenplay, Helen Childress, the writer oozes a slick style for a larger appeal. But if there is your usual hokum of a love triangle, then there is also genuine warmth and familiarity that Leliana (Winona Ryder) goes through for her career searching for an opportunity wolfishly, that gives an unexpected and required depth to this storyline.
There is also a sense of urgency in, the director, Ben Stiller's lexicon to present the 20s mindset which is often quick and comes with less effort. Winona Ryder in the lead steals all the charm, she literally snatches it away from others, even when Ethan Hawke recites a whistle blowing and heart swooning one liners, her eyes staring him seeking for innocence, speaks more than he is allowed to. But mind you, it doesn't suggest in any way, that Hawke is just going to sit by, he has a bigger hand and so what if it is flawed, it gives him a three dimensional perspective.
And between these love birds, Stiller comes in from a mechanical world where rules are everything and art often forgotten, and with his performance you can easily see that, he doesn't hold back on expressing his "sorry"(s). In its final act, after Stiller has got you in his beautiful web of lies, the way he juggles these characters and our emotions, it definitely lives up to the hype when the last act lives up to its "climactic" title. Reality Bites, yes, but there is still enough chocolate for us to share with others and cherish it with a broad plastered smile.
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Awards
Society of Texas Film Critics Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
MTV Movie + TV Awards
• 1 Nomination