Reality Bites was Ben Stiller’s directorial debut, and you can tell he was heavily influenced by Richard Linklater’s epic 1990 indie classic Slacker. Starring Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder, the Texas-based film has many of the same trademarks of the laissez-faire cultural attitude of what would become known as Generation X. The Baby Boomers were digging in as the upstart kids of the ’80s and ’90s were ushering in a new identity that coincided with the emergence of a filthy new Seattle sound and grimy sartorial style called grunge. Stiller has a firm hand on what the new landscape was, and Reality Bites is a love letter to the final days of a pre-internet, pre-cell phone, social media-driven zeitgeist. Within the movie’s love triangle, he frames the plot around three twenty-somethings struggling with what path to take in life and what it means to be an adult. Starring alongside Hawke and Ryder, Stiller creates a wonderfully realistic romantic comedy that hits all the right notes as the quintessential Gen-X cinematic experience.

What Is ‘Reality Bites’ About?

Troy Dyer and Lelaina Pierce are recent college graduates and roommates looking for stability in the awkward years between being students and becoming professionals. Troy is a laid-back wannabe philosopher/musician, while Lelaina yearns for an artistic, filmmaking career path that will afford her life the structure she desperately craves. They are two very different people, but they have an undeniable attraction that sometimes makes their relationship difficult to navigate. When straight-laced TV executive Michael Grates (Stiller) enters the picture as Lelaina’s boyfriend, Troy realizes that his cool, Bohemian lifestyle isn’t what Lelaina is looking for, but he doesn’t know how to change for her. The love triangle that results is what drives Reality Bites, forcing both Troy and Lelaina to change their perspectives to discover what they truly want out of life and each other. Janeane Garofalo and Steve Zahn are terrific in supporting roles as Vickie and Sammy.

‘Reality Bites’ Is a Romantic Comedy That Nails the ’90s and Gen-X
Image via Universal Pictures

Certain markers have to be part of a generational-defining movie. Because Reality Bites is synonymous with Gen-X and the 90s, those things include vintage clothing, oily hair that looks like you just rolled out of bed, phone booths, the fear of testing positive for HIV/AIDS, and 1-900 numbers in an era before cell phones. Stiller does a remarkable job of hitting these bullet points in his first feature film as a director, though there are moments Reality Bites feels too polished in its approach to the broader complexities of the decade’s cultural shifts. Hawke and Ryder are two of the most identifiable — and still extremely relevant — performers from the era who naturally understand what life was like for young people who were part of a generation that was butting heads with Boomers and looking to establish itself as a unique group.

‘Reality Bites’ Was Cinema Catching Up With a Cultural Change Already Underway

Reaganism and conservative traditionalism were waning in the early to mid-1990s. Reality Bites reflected how the newest generation of college graduates and twenty-somethings were moving away from the dominant culture of the 1980s and embracing a new outlook. Much of it started with the new sound coming out of Seattle. This grunge style became the fulcrum for a full paradigm shift that bled into all aspects of society, including politics, fashion, and ideology that leaned heavily into a faux sense of ambivalence.

Youth is often linked to an attitude of indifference toward social customs and norms., and Reality Bites is one of the seminal coming-of-age films that forces a generation to look at itself in the mirror and determine if it likes what it sees. The characters in the movie all represent a path you can take in life without condoning one over the other. Still, if Stiller intended to make a fun rom-com that also made audiences re-evaluate their values, he succeeded.

Reality Bites is currently available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

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