Reality Bites Totally Explained

Everything about Reality Bites totally explained

Reality Bites is a 1994 film written by Helen Childress and featuring the directorial debut of Ben Stiller. It stars Stiller, Winona Ryder, and Ethan Hawke, with major supporting roles played by Janeane Garofalo and Steve Zahn. The film was shot on location in Austin (where Childress' high school is located), and Houston, Texas in 42 days. The plot is centered on Lelaina (Ryder), an aspiring videographer working on a documentary called Reality Bites about the disenfranchised lives of her friends and roommates (Hawke, Garofalo, and Zahn), and to a certain degree, about Lelaina herself. Their challenges, both documented and not, exemplify some of the career and lifestyle choices faced by Generation X.

Plot

The film follows a group of recent college graduates living and loving in Houston,TX. Long-time friend, temporary roommate and angry starving artist Troy (Hawke) and his love interest, Lelaina (Ryder) are attracted to each other, though it's an attraction that neither of them has really acted upon as the film begins, one alcohol-influenced event in the past notwithstanding. He's a slacker and nihilist grunge rock musician by night, while losing job after job in a series of minimum wage dead end endeavors during the day - the last of which he loses early in the film because of stealing a candy bar from his employer. Troy's father, who is never seen on-screen, is dying of prostate cancer; this prompts Troy to remain close with his father when he can.
   Lelaina meets Michael (Ben Stiller) in what filmmakers call a meet cute scene: in an act of derision, she throws a cigarette into his convertible, causing him to crash into her car. The two soon begin to date. He works at an MTV-like cable channel as an executive, and after learning about her documentary, he wants to get it aired on his network. The film follows Lelaina as she struggles with her career and is forced to figure out whether it's Michael or Troy she wants.
   Lelaina's roommate Vickie (Janeane Garofalo) has a series of one-night stands and short relationships with dozens of guys, motivated by a fear of being alone compounded by a fear of rejection; her promiscuity leads her to confront a very-real risk of contracting AIDS. Vickie works as a sales associate for The Gap, a job she was initially reluctant to take. She was promoted to assistant manager and found that she'd a talent for management.
   Friend Sammy (Steve Zahn) is gay; he remains celibate, not because of a fear of AIDS, but because forming a relationship would force him to come out to his conservative Republican parents.

Production

Based on a screenplay she wrote in 1990 called Blue By You, Helen Childress was hired by producer Michael Shamberg to write a film about people in their twenties. For three years she wrote and rewrote Reality Bites, generating 70 different drafts. As a result, the Michael Grates character changed from a 35-year-old advertising man trying to market Japanese candy bars in America to a slick TV executive in his twenties. She read the script in one sitting and "found it very true to life." They finalized a deal and the label opened its roster to the director who picked only one band: Me Phi Me. RCA aggressively marketed the album and had five tracks on rotation on radio and MTV. The album also earned a no. 1 single with Lisa Loeb's "Stay (I Missed You)".
The film's soundtrack includes songs by World Party, Squeeze, The Knack ("My Sharona" featured prominently in one scene from the film), Juliana Hatfield, Social Distortion, and two contributions from Crowded House ("Locked Out" & "Something So Strong") in addition to the runaway hit "Stay (I Missed You)" by Lisa Loeb, which earned Loeb the distinction of being the only artist to top the Hot 100 before being signed to any record label. It also includes "Conjunction Junction" from Schoolhouse Rock!, another song brought into the foreground of a film full of pop culture references.

Track listing

"My Sharona" - The Knack
"Spin The Bottle" - Juliana Hatfield Three
"Bed Of Roses" - The Indians
"When You Come Back To Me" - World Party
"Going, Going, Gone" - The Posies
"Stay (I Missed You)" - Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories
"All I Want Is You" - U2
"Locked Out" - Crowded House
"Spinning Around Over" - Lenny Kravitz
"I'm Nuthin'" - Ethan Hawke
"Turnip Farm" - Dinosaur Jr.
"Revival" - Me Phi Me
"Tempted" - Squeeze
"Baby, I Love Your Way" - Big Mountain
"Stay (I Missed You) (Living Room mix)" - Lisa Loeb
"Add It Up" - Ethan Hawke (Violent Femmes cover)
"Confusion" - New Order
"Disco Inferno - The Trammps
"Give a Man a Fish" - Arrested Development
"Fools Like Me" - Lisa Loeb

Tracks 1-14 appear on the original soundtrack. Tracks 15-20 appear on the 10th Anniversary Edition of the soundtrack.

Reception

Reality Bites premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1994. It didn't perform as well at the box office as the studio had hoped. In six weeks it grossed $18.3 million which was more than the film's $11 million 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." In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "By aiming specifically - and accurately - at characters in their twenties, debuting screenwriter Helen Childress and first-time director Stiller achieve something even greater: they encapsulate an era."

Lawsuit

In 2005, the real Troy Dyer (a financial planner from Wisconsin) sued writer Helen Childress, producer Danny DeVito and director Ben Stiller. Dyer claimed that after the 2004 release of the tenth anniversary DVD of the film he'd "inquiries from potential clients as to whether he was the fictional Troy Dyer". Universal, Childress, DeVito and Stiller attempted to seek shelter under California's anti-SLAPP statutes but in early 2007 the appeals court denied them SLAPP protection with the following decision: "In sum, assuming the issues facing Generation X at the start of the 1990’s are of significant interest to the public, Dyer, a financial consultant living in Wisconsin who happened to have gone to school with Childress, wasn't connected to these issues in any way. Thus, the defendants failed to meet their initial burden of showing the activity underlying Dyer’s lawsuit was in furtherance of the defendants’ constitutional right of free speech in connection with a public issue or an issue of public interest".Further Information

Get more info on 'Reality Bites'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://reality_bites.totallyexplained.com">Reality Bites Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.