Reality Bites

Fresh out of university, Lelaina Pierce is filming her friends for a documentary and cannot find work. Troy, who shares the flat, does nothing and has an opinion about everything. Michael offers her both a job and an orderly life. It is Ben Stiller's first film as director, and he plays Michael. Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Janeane Garofalo take the other leads. Helen Childress wrote the screenplay, working through roughly seventy drafts over three years, drawing on her own experience in the recession of the early nineties. Stiller came in as director first and then suggested he play the third point of the triangle. There is a rescue in the casting too: Garofalo was fired during rehearsals and rehired after Ryder argued for her. Principal photography ran 42 days, with exteriors in Houston and interiors in Los Angeles. It premiered at Sundance on 28 January 1994 and opened on 18 February. The first box office result was a disappointment; it finished at 41 million dollars worldwide against an 11.5 million budget. The soundtrack outgrew the film. Lisa Loeb's Stay launched her career and became the first number one single by an artist without a record label. Who it is for: viewers who like nineties Generation X films and the music of the period. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot stand Troy. The film lets him win, and that decision gets argued about more now than it did then.