Winona Ryder @50: the definitive "Reality Bites"
Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at 11:33AM Team Experience is celebrating Winona Ryder this week for her 50th birthday
by Timothy Lyons
1994 was a watershed year for a young Winona Ryder. It started with her first Oscar nomination (and a Golden Globe win) for her performance in Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and would come to a close with the Christmas release of Gillian Armstrong’s superior adaptation of Little Women with Ryder’s performance as Jo leading to her second Oscar nomination in as many years (more on that tomorrow). Sandwiched between this diptych of heavily-costumed prestige pics was the release of Ben Stiller’s Reality Bites. Here was a film that would come to define a generation (Generation X) and featured the best, most natural, and luminescent performance of Ryder’s career.
I am a huge Winona Ryder fan - let me get that out of the way before we go further. She does however have a tendency towards the fidgety, the strangely mannered and vaguely uneasy in her performances. Sometimes this can lead to her work feeling slightly blank or disengaged, but more often than not (especially when called upon to play one of many outsiders) it is just right...
All this is to say that as big a Winona fan as I am, I know that the role has to fit - a chameleon she is not. Happily the marriage between actress and character has never been more magic than it was with Winona & Lelaina Pierce.
Ryder’s nervous energy fits so well with the natural discomfort of the role of fringe-dweller on the precipice that it’s almost as if she felt freed by the experience. Surely there were parallels felt in the actor’s own transition between child performer and serious actress that lent itself to Lelaina’s own experience. Equally, unencumbered by period finery and genre trappings, she has never felt looser or more engaged onscreen - there are times where she truly feels lit from within. This is not to discredit her director and amazing screen partners (never better Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn and Ethan Hawke) who I’m certain went a long way towards pulling out this amazing work, but the performance still feels defiantly Ryder’s own creation. And what a creation - however it got there.
There is really not much I can add about my personal experience with this classic film that hasn’t already been said. Apart from evoking in me as much nostalgia for the early-to-mid 90s as a re-reading of Alex Garland’s The Beach, or blasting either Nirvana or The Cranberries, Reality Bites also brings to light like few other films that transitory period between the idealist rebelliousness of young adulthood and the sudden need to ‘get real’ and make some serious moves. I myself have definitely felt that pressure to build a future while also trying to maintain a hold onto my passions and ideals.
Despite being definitively of an era, Reality Bites is a timeless and sneakily powerful tale of youth in revolt and this is in great part thanks to Winona Ryder’s magnetic central performance. A performance that deserves to be mentioned alongside her most recognised work and as much as I love her interpretation of Louisa May Alcott’s iconic heroine, probably should have been the one to net her that Best Actress nod for 1994.
previously on Winona @ 50
Beetlejuice
Heathers
Mermaids
Age of Innocence
up next
Little Women
Reader Comments (8)
Millie Bobby Brown in a couple of years...
By the way, on the prediction chart for score, you ranked Alberto Iglesias as "unknown composer", but he's been nominated 3 times for an Oscar!
Millie Bobby Brown in a couple of years...
By the way, on the prediction chart for score, you ranked Alberto Iglesias as "unknown composer", but he's been nominated 3 times for an Oscar!
Perfect GIF choice.
This is in my top 10 all-time, and is definitely one of my most-watched movies. I was 15 when it came out, and it all but defined how I imagined my life would look in my 20s (and wasn't so far off either.)
I certainly smoked for longer than I should have because Winona made it look so cool. She and Janeane became the epitome of 90s cool for me.
I think that this is the best Winona has ever been. Past the moody teenage roles that felt like they were part of fitting into some older man's vision and, at a time when she was just beginning to be able to show her range, she really just embodied Lelaina (a character name I still love). Working with a first-time screenwriter and a first-time director, this really felt like movie-making by the seat of one's pants and I loved every minute of it. Both a time capsule of the 90s and timeless in terms of the angst of being in one's early 20s and trying to figure out what to do immediately post-college, I still enjoy repeat viewing as a sort of comfort food of all of it. Because she did offbeat so well, she rarely (if ever other than here?) got a chance to do contemporary and grounded in a story that centered on her character, but she really knocked it of the park here and I welcome all return visits.
This is my favourite Winona performance easily. She always reads as so contemporary to me - so I’ll admit to feeling like she sticks out a bit for the wrong reasons in period films I’ve seen her in. But 90s Winona in 90s gen x coming of age film… megastar.
"...and Melrose Place is a really good show."
Perfect line in a great movie that defined the '90s for me. And great soundtrack too!
@paranoid android
I get that line in my head ALL THE TIME. Like every day.
I did like this film a lot as it did give me a crush on Winona as she was so gorgeous in this film.