Reality Bites (1993)

Remember Gen X? This is why you forgot it.

A surprisingly sweet romantic comedy debut from Ben Stiller.

A romantic heart, caustic wit, and the energy of its fresh cast ensure the film's continued appeal.

It's often genuinely funny -- but it's still an establishment picture pretending it's not.

Ben Stiller's feature directorial debut is a zeitgeust comedy, whose significance is more sociological than cinematic--It's "The Big Chill" for the twentysomething crowd in the Age of Clinton and AIDS.

Gen Xers looking for a good time probably found themselves cheated at having been pigeonholed like this and watching the film's fun, ironic beginning give way to goopy pathos.

There's probably a moderate little romantic comedy crying to get out here, but the film's vain striving for casual hip proves suffocatingly obtrusive.