Reality Bites

Name: Reality Bites
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Released: February 18, 1994
Duration: 99 min
Rating: 67
Cast: Ben Stiller, Ethan Hawke, Harry O'Reilly, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Don Baker

1994

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Ratings

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7.8

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7.8	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Ratings

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Reality Bites

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Movie Details & Credits

Universal Pictures | Release Date: February 18, 1994 | PG-13

Starring: Ben Stiller, Ethan Hawke, Harry O'Reilly, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Don Baker, Renée Zellweger, Steve Zahn, Susan Norfleet, Swoosie Kurtz, Winona Ryder

Summary: A documentary filmmaker and her fellow Gen X graduates face life after college, looking for work and love in Houston.

Director: Ben Stiller

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy, Romance

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 99 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Owen Gleiberman

Ryder, good as she was in The Age of Innocence, gives her first true star performance here. Beneath her crisp, postfeminist manner, Lelaina is bristling with confusion, and Ryder lets you read every crosscurrent of temptation and anxiety, the way her tentative search for love slowly grows into a restless hunger. Yearning, hilarious, lost within their precocious self-awareness, these slackers have soul. Read full review

David Ansen

Ryder, Hawke, Stiller and Garofalo turn these paradigms into wonderfully tasty characters. Written with verve and played with grace, Reality Bites is too smart to pass itself off as a definitive statement, but it gets the details delightfully right. Read full review

Steve Persall

The first film that comes close to capturing the Bohemian flair and everyman accents of Generation X life while remaining a first-rate piece of entertainment. Stiller and his knowing screenwriter Helen Childress fashioned a wise, very funny film that brightens the slow early going of 1994. [18 Feb 1994, p.6]

David Sterritt

At its best, this entertaining romance blends the zesty dialogue of a classic screwball comedy with the nonstop energy of a Post-Modern pastiche. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

Underneath, it's a flashy crock-another piece of self-congratulatory formula wish-fulfillment masquerading as hip. This would-be "inside" comedy about not selling out sells out in virtually every scene. Read full review

Roger Ebert

The performances are all just fine; I wish they'd been at the service of another movie. Read full review

Noel Murray

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. Read full review

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The3AcademySins

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 HawkeReality 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!… Expand

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

amheretojudge

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,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.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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