Lisa Loeb's "Stay" was a very cool song to me when this movie originally came out, and I graduated college in 1994. Even so, I never saw this movie. I'm sure the fact that this is a "romance" film, and that the romance genre has never been at the top of my favorites, is one main reason... It would take 32 years and an interest in Ethan Hawke films for me to finally see this one.
The movie does play the romance angle hard. In a normal romance, the two characters meant for each other can't just easily find their way to one another, but in this movie, the separation is teased a few times, and you start to wonder, Will they ever get together, or will "reality bite"?
It's cute that the "Reality Bites" title is captured in the film, as part of the "In Your Face" program made out of Lelaina's (Wyonda Ryder) home movie camera documentary. In the end, almost everyone in the film actually "gets" something. Maybe it's not all that they want out of life, but they all get something. If that's the case, how much does reality actually bite? For it to really "bite," Lelaina and Troy (Ethan Hawke) can't get together, Vickie (Janeane Garafelo) would test positive for AIDS, and Sammy (Steve Zahn) wouldn't be able to come out of the closet.
Speaking of AIDS, was the disease really a big 1990s topic? It comes up multiple times in the film -- VIckie's HIV test, Sammy's knowledge that people think of AIDS as the "gay disease," and even a mention of the Brady Bunch not being like real life because Robert Reed led a secret life and ended up dying in a way that Mike Brady never would.
So what's this movie about?
A group of friends graduate college, except for Troy. He's the unemployed artist, an IQ genius, and he doesn't see the need to finish his BFA. His best friend, Lelaina, has divorced parents, each of whom bring their new spouse to her graduation dinner. Lelaina brings Troy, but they're just good friends. They might have hooked up once, but she was really drunk. Troy, however, won't let her forget it happened, whether it actually happened or not. Everyone knows that there's sexual tension of some sort between them, but for the most part, they either bury it or leave the topic unspoken.
Meanwhile, Troy has one-night stands with random girls. Vickie does too. She even keeps a book of names and dates. She's up to 67. #67 snuck out while she slept, and when she wakes up, she can't remember what his name was. Maybe it was Ricky. Whether Lelaina does "hook ups" or not, it doesn't seem likely that her dating history is any more serious than her friends. This is a world where everyone's parents got divorced, and there are no happy endings.
The group talks about what they want to do with their lives. Maybe make a difference. Maybe have a career. The truth is, 4 years of college hasn't prepared them for the real world. Troy works at a news stand, Vickie is a salesperson at the Gap, and Vickie has a "gopher" job at a morning TV show. If college was supposed to be the "golden ticket," how do they cash in?
Then Lelaina runs into Michael (Ben Stiller), or actually he literally runs into her after they are both driving down the road and Lelaina tosses a cigarette into his convertible, causing him to panic and crash into her. He's a 29-year-old music/media VP, and maybe they're going to go out on a date. At the same time, Lelaina and Vicki are roommates, and Troy, having lost his job, moves into the "Maxi Pad" (Vickie's term for their place).
Lelaina must have been into film studies, because she often films what's going on with her and her friends. Is she making a documentary? What does she hope to achieve with her filming? Maybe Troy is the subject of her filming? Maybe she does like him but refuses to acknowledge her attraction, and her filming is a way that she can observe him and pretend it for "artistic purposes."
On her first date with Michael, she explains her goal: to document her friends to show them as they try to find themselves without the help of any role models or heroes. Small talk with Michael goes well. He's not the kind of guy that she would normally be into, but he seems to want what she wants -- just to find a way to be happy and keep that feeling.
Troy's no different in that regard, except he understands that life only offers happiness in small amounts, temporary moments. There's no way to extend the moments past the fleeting, and at best, life is just a "series of near escapes," and no one ever gets out alive.
When Lelaina gets fired, Troy cheers her up by taking her on a walking tour of the 12 places he got fired. They laugh and obviously like each other, but Lelaina holds back. Troy's been holding back too, for his own reasons, but it feels like each thinks that if they end up together, maybe that would only be a momentary, and they only want to risk a relationship that have a chance of being permanent. Troy is okay with temporary -- maybe, but Lelaina is still holding on to wanting something more.
But even as valedictorian of her University, Lelaina doesn't have all the answers. She's not the "rock" that she thought she was compared to all of her other friends, and while Michael is nice, he's lightyears beyond her, at least in terms of career... and her rejection of Troy has really dampened one of the most important friendships she has going.
By the end, the right couple does end up together. Michael isn't a bad guy; he was just never THE guy. He does, however, end up producing the same kind of In Your Face programs for the "MTV network" that Lelaina rejects. So while he tried to understand her and what she stood for, when left on his own, he's willing to give the network the kind of stuff it wants. As he puts it, it's fine to want to feed people meatloaf, but you have to hide the meatloaf so that the audience doesn't know what it's eating. It's a silly analogy, but his point is: He's understands how reality television works.
Don't blink. Renee Zellweger is in this one. And so is David Spade.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
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