Reality Bites (1994)
6/10
So Nineties
5 December 2005
I remember really liking this film when it first came out, but it hasn't aged very well. It seems to be suffocating under the weight of its own lethargy.

Many teen concepts are played out here, the angst, the moving out for the first time, the corporate sellout versus being true to yourself, and for a while, I got sucked in. But now when you look at the film its hard not to see it as some cynical marketing piece, as Bill Hicks once said, they've gone for the "anti-market market". It plays big business and corporations as evil whilst simultaneously being in bed with so called corporations and taking your hard earned cash while they're at it.

Again, some of the characters just need a good slapping, too many emo-kids here, the world isn't fair, yeah, get over it and get a wash while you're at it. Maybe its a bit too kitsch for me, and Americans will get more out of it than other nationalities, but I thought the acting wasn't great, the jokes too few and far between, the direction plodding and the tale itself rather predictable. There are worse films out there though, so don't be afraid of giving it a try, it just seems as empty as the post-modern society it was trying to deconstruct.
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