Untitled Movie Thought

One downfall to the coming of age film is the fact that they are commonly monogamous with teenagers. I always loved the term “coming of age” because it wasn’t age specific, which implied its persistence beyond adolescence. But despite some mediocre attempts in the eighties, this idea had never been given the respect it deserved.

In the mid nineties, we were given just that in the form of four twenty-something friends, fresh out of college and each with a personal expedition. This film broke the adolescence barrier and took us on a realistic quest to getting a job, paying the rent, and finding our independence.

Reality Bites is a film that I grew up with in every sense of the cliche. Being a staple of my teen years, it displayed the dream of living like an adult without sacrificing any youthful behavior. We too could spend our Saturday nights tripping out because we discovered that Evian is naive spelled backwards.

Being a staple of my twenties, it converesly revealed the painful truth about being stuck between where you are and where you want to go. No longer worried about final exams, the characters must find their ultimate purpose in the world by taking a blind step in an unknown direction.

From this basic opposition, the actors skillfully fleshed out the structure with characters we knew and believed in. They created the perfect amount of comedy and tradgey to allow a wide audience to rediscover its authenticity.

Summed up: “I loved it until I lived it”.