Get the latest gossip

Revisiting seminal Gen X film 'Reality Bites' 30 years later

Directed by Ben Stiller and starring Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke, the film "occupies an oversized spot in the cultural memory of a certain era," writes critic Sean Burns. It's back on the big screen as part of the Coolidge Corner Theatre's Cinema Jukebox series.

Hotly hyped as the first Hollywood movie about the then-mysterious “Generation X,” the film followed Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” and predated Kevin Smith’s “Clerks” in the cinematic chronicles of the underemployed children of baby boomers, profiled in endless magazine think-pieces as commitment-phobic latchkey kids raised by television reruns who rejected the values of the Reagan era via a bored skepticism often interpreted as apathy. Her delicate features made this quintessentially ‘90s It Girl perfect for period pieces, and “Reality Bites” fell between her career-topping roles in Martin Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence” and Gillian Armstrong’s “Little Women.” The star later said she signed on to the project because she desperately wanted to do a movie in which she could wear jeans. (Courtesy Photofest)She gets short shrift by an underdeveloped AIDS-scare subplot that nonetheless leads to the movie’s best scene: Vickie describes feeling like a guest star on a very special episode of Fox’s tawdry nighttime soap “Melrose Place” where her character teaches everyone important lessons about HIV and then they’ll all be wearing halter tops and choker chains at her funeral.

Get the Android app