I rate my movies by how much i feel they are worth watching. Thus "totally" equals a score of 10 and "don't bothers" like this one end up with 5 or below.
The back cover of Reality Bites presents it as a commentary on life for 20-somethings in the 90s - with a love story to boot. It begins that way... but lapses soon enough into what is merely a clichéd love triangle tale between Winona Ryder's documentary-maker-wannabe Lelaina, Ethan Hawke's darkly handsome moody-muso-slacker Troy and Ben Stiller's likable yuppie Michael who, whilst adoring, "will never really get her". No props for guessing who she picks. The sad thing is that the deluded Lelaina ain't that deep, and it's her that isn't deserving of Michael.
Overall you can tell the film is trying to say something, but what? I didn't enjoy watching it enough to bother chasing for meanings that mostly had to rely on the audience's imagination to be formed. Whatever the message was supposed to be is strangled by the sloppy script and dislikeable characters (can you say pretentious and whiny? The only character we're actually able to relate to, who doesn't seem to think the world revolves around him, is Michael - the yuppie! So what if he's a suit, he's the only one who isn't an a**hole).
While Reality Bites manages to be reasonably entertaining throughout, it will leave you ultimately unsatisfied and more than likely bothered - it doesn't really explore or say anything favourable about those Gen-X-ers and the love triangle thing has been done a thousand times before, and better.
The back cover of Reality Bites presents it as a commentary on life for 20-somethings in the 90s - with a love story to boot. It begins that way... but lapses soon enough into what is merely a clichéd love triangle tale between Winona Ryder's documentary-maker-wannabe Lelaina, Ethan Hawke's darkly handsome moody-muso-slacker Troy and Ben Stiller's likable yuppie Michael who, whilst adoring, "will never really get her". No props for guessing who she picks. The sad thing is that the deluded Lelaina ain't that deep, and it's her that isn't deserving of Michael.
Overall you can tell the film is trying to say something, but what? I didn't enjoy watching it enough to bother chasing for meanings that mostly had to rely on the audience's imagination to be formed. Whatever the message was supposed to be is strangled by the sloppy script and dislikeable characters (can you say pretentious and whiny? The only character we're actually able to relate to, who doesn't seem to think the world revolves around him, is Michael - the yuppie! So what if he's a suit, he's the only one who isn't an a**hole).
While Reality Bites manages to be reasonably entertaining throughout, it will leave you ultimately unsatisfied and more than likely bothered - it doesn't really explore or say anything favourable about those Gen-X-ers and the love triangle thing has been done a thousand times before, and better.