reality bites
I first saw this film in 1994, when it was released. Have memories of people competing to be the first to replicate Winona's haircut (the waif, and apparently a bitch to grow out) or declaring that the next CD they were going to buy from UniRecords was the Reality Bites soundtrack! (Ah, sweet innocence of university years, and those days of CD buying being a major and publicly discussed experience). Yes, it could even be that seeing Reality Bites led me further into listening to Evan Dando, Juliana Hatfield, Belly, Nirvana and all that American indie rock stuff.
But I really disliked the movie. I found Winona Ryder's nasally voice annoying, her character's earnest cynicism annoying, Ethan Hawke's character quite unlikable and impossible to imagine falling for. Janene Garafola and Steve Zahn were all right, but there characters were fairly cardboard in their quirkiness. All in all, I found it almost as bad as the MTV style production they were trying to ridicule via Ben Stiller's character.
That was then. This is now, when unfortunately lame ass reality TV gets regular airing and is even starting to appear like a refreshing distraction from reaction in it's contrived sterile smoothed out monotone version. This is now, when all that Winona's character feared (that we'd get sucked into the working grind on the promise of being able to buy cool cars and then find ourselves still unsatisfied and boring and dull and middle aged) came true (truth be told, I believed her prediction then and believe it now. You only have to talk to someone who has paid off their home loan and is smugly boring you to tears to know it).
I think I disliked it at the time because it set her up as this annoying whiney character, her dream of making documentaries too glib, but in a way her video diaries of friends were reasonably interesting, did capture a certain 90s zeitgeist. It's weird to watch Janene G. act, being a stand up comedian turned actor> I've seen her in West Wing and she always imparts a lot of herself and her political beliefs in her acting. She plays it for laughs, fairly flippantly, doesn't take herself seriously the way Winona Ryder does. Steve Zahn is a small character acted large, just see him jumping around dancing to My Sharona and he has got something.
I think what had changed about me, and made me like this film more (apart from age) is how I felt about Ethan Hawke. Back then I thought he was pretentious and annoying, like his character. Then I had a very charming and winsome honours English literature student explain to me why he was her all time dream guy and I slowly came to agree that he wasn't so bad. She explained that he was an actor who deliberately avoided being promoted as beefcake, that he chose interesting movies, more intellectual or cerebral movies, he wrote books, he was involved in theatre groups, he attempted to be a more sustainable actor rather than a star. I'd confused his character's rebellious attitude with an ego, perhaps. So I read his books, and even had my economic rationalist non driving friend read my copies one road trip weekend, and I followed his career and I often return to watch Before Sunset for comfort. There is something so poignant about the portrayal of an innocent love struggling to survive when only cynicism and bitterness threaten it, when adults are angry about the naivete of their youth, when they realise how carelessly they treated something rare.
So it seems that Ethan Hawke has been in several movies that represent my generation, he is just sufficiently older to portray it, before i experience it. And his character Troy seems strangely recognisable, now that I am older, capable of being cutting but only by refusing to censor the truth (your bravado is embarrassing, etc). Have the DVD, will lend it to friends, it is amusing for its cameos (Evan Dando, Anthony Kiedis) and it's simplicity.
But I really disliked the movie. I found Winona Ryder's nasally voice annoying, her character's earnest cynicism annoying, Ethan Hawke's character quite unlikable and impossible to imagine falling for. Janene Garafola and Steve Zahn were all right, but there characters were fairly cardboard in their quirkiness. All in all, I found it almost as bad as the MTV style production they were trying to ridicule via Ben Stiller's character.
That was then. This is now, when unfortunately lame ass reality TV gets regular airing and is even starting to appear like a refreshing distraction from reaction in it's contrived sterile smoothed out monotone version. This is now, when all that Winona's character feared (that we'd get sucked into the working grind on the promise of being able to buy cool cars and then find ourselves still unsatisfied and boring and dull and middle aged) came true (truth be told, I believed her prediction then and believe it now. You only have to talk to someone who has paid off their home loan and is smugly boring you to tears to know it).
I think I disliked it at the time because it set her up as this annoying whiney character, her dream of making documentaries too glib, but in a way her video diaries of friends were reasonably interesting, did capture a certain 90s zeitgeist. It's weird to watch Janene G. act, being a stand up comedian turned actor> I've seen her in West Wing and she always imparts a lot of herself and her political beliefs in her acting. She plays it for laughs, fairly flippantly, doesn't take herself seriously the way Winona Ryder does. Steve Zahn is a small character acted large, just see him jumping around dancing to My Sharona and he has got something.
I think what had changed about me, and made me like this film more (apart from age) is how I felt about Ethan Hawke. Back then I thought he was pretentious and annoying, like his character. Then I had a very charming and winsome honours English literature student explain to me why he was her all time dream guy and I slowly came to agree that he wasn't so bad. She explained that he was an actor who deliberately avoided being promoted as beefcake, that he chose interesting movies, more intellectual or cerebral movies, he wrote books, he was involved in theatre groups, he attempted to be a more sustainable actor rather than a star. I'd confused his character's rebellious attitude with an ego, perhaps. So I read his books, and even had my economic rationalist non driving friend read my copies one road trip weekend, and I followed his career and I often return to watch Before Sunset for comfort. There is something so poignant about the portrayal of an innocent love struggling to survive when only cynicism and bitterness threaten it, when adults are angry about the naivete of their youth, when they realise how carelessly they treated something rare.
So it seems that Ethan Hawke has been in several movies that represent my generation, he is just sufficiently older to portray it, before i experience it. And his character Troy seems strangely recognisable, now that I am older, capable of being cutting but only by refusing to censor the truth (your bravado is embarrassing, etc). Have the DVD, will lend it to friends, it is amusing for its cameos (Evan Dando, Anthony Kiedis) and it's simplicity.
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