Taglines: A comedy about love in the ’90s.
Reality Bites movie storyline. In this study of Generation X manners, Lelaina, the valedictorian of her college class, camcords her friends in a mock documentary of posteducation life. Troy is her best friend, a perpetually unemployed musical slacker. Vickie is a manager at the Gap who worries about the results of an AIDS test, while Sammy has problems grappling with his sexuality. When Lelaina meets Michael, an earnest video executive who takes her homemade video to his MTV-like station, she must decide what she values–the materialism of yuppie Michael or the philosophical musings of Troy.
Reality Bites is a 1994 American romantic comedy-drama film written by Helen Childress and directed by Ben Stiller. It stars Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Stiller, with supporting roles by Janeane Garofalo and Steve Zahn. The plot follows Lelaina (Ryder), an aspiring videographer working on a documentary called Reality Bites about the disenfranchised lives of her friends and roommates. Their challenges exemplify some of the career and lifestyle choices faced by Generation X.
The film’s critical reception was mixed, but was successful commercially, grossing $20 million in the United States on an $11 million budget. Critics highlighted the performances of Ryder, Hawke and Garofalo in particular.[4][5] However, it has since achieved cult status and has been singled out as one of the films that captured the zeitgeist of the early 1990s grunge scene among 20-somethings, while also bringing attention to various issues that plagued young Americans at the time.
The film grossed $5.1 million in 1,149 theaters on its opening weekend. Initially, Reality Bites did not perform as well at the box office as the studio had hoped. In six weeks, it grossed $18.3 million, more than the film’s $11 million production budget.[ Bruce Feldman, Universal Pictures’ Vice President of Marketing, said, “The media labeled it as a Generation X picture, while we thought it was a comedy with broad appeal”.
The studio placed advertisements during programs chosen for their appeal to 12- to 34-year-olds, and in interviews Stiller was careful not to mention the phrase, “Generation X”. The film went on to be a moderate hit for Universal and make $20.9 million in North America and $12.3 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $33.3 million.
Reality Bites (1994)
Directed by: Ben Stiller
Starring: Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Swoosie Kurtz, Joe Don Baker, John Mahoney, Renée Zellweger, Susan Norfleet, Chelsea Lagos
Screenplay by: Helen Childress
Production Design by: Sharon Seymour
Cinematography by: Emmanuel Lubezki
Film Editing by: Lisa Zeno Churgin, John Spence
Costume Design by: Eugenie Bafaloukos
Set Decoration by: Maggie Martin
Art Direction by: Jeff Knipp
Music by: Karl Wallinger
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some language, drug content and sensuality.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: February 18, 1994
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