I sat down with this one expecting an embarrassingly dated, pretentious peephole into the flightiest years of the 1990s. And while, okay, that’s not always very far from the truth, I was also surprised to find something a little more substantial: wit, truth and ennui. An emphatically even-handed rendition of four wide-eyed kids at the onset of their post-college years, _Reality Bites_ depicts each character as flawed, uncertain and lost. Adrift without a safety net for the first time in their lives, the cast alternates between selfish and idealistic, making big mistakes in their personal, professional and romantic lives but also, sometimes, realizing it and growing from the experience. Often confidently wrong, these twenty-somethings are catty and dramatic, prone to rash decisions and emotional blow-ups but also big enough to eventually admit their shortcomings and offer the olive branch. I don’t like any of them, really, but I can relate. I probably wouldn’t have thought too highly of myself at the same age, either.

There’s a lot of heavy-handed romantic turmoil here, given the tempestuous love triangle between the beautiful people in the eye of the storm. Fickle Winona Ryder, at the height of her pixie cuteness, must pick between the irritable, poetic genius she’s secretly admired for years (a grungy Ethan Hawke) and the supportive, dim-witted new guy (Ben Stiller, in a suit and bad Morrissey hairstyle) who doesn’t embody her rebellious counter-culture ethos but offers emotional and financial stability. That material can be wearying, especially as Ryder flimsily dodges several uncomfortable make-a-choice moments, but her indecision is understandable given the guys’ tendency to sabotage themselves and her character seems to hem and haw over everything anyway. Decision paralysis is real, particularly for someone who thinks they’re in so far over their head, and Ryder's character is living proof. I don’t think she makes the right choice in the end, but at least she does make a choice.

An anthem of sorts for jaded, cynical Generation Xers as they entered the workforce, _Reality Bites_ was appropriately painted with the same brush as Cameron Crowe’s preceding film, _Singles_. This iteration might be missing the hip, fashionable Seattle soundtrack that buffed its predecessor, but it’s loaded with the same frustrated, angsty attitudes about life, love and the empty promise of adulthood. The humor is keen and sharp, the squishy romantic bits mildly excessive but not unbelievable, and the core message is loud and true: no matter how much they may have convinced you (or themselves) otherwise, nobody really knows what they’re doing at this point in their life.