So I've fallen off the wagon a bit: yesterday was too full of sleep and partying to watch a full movie. Such is college, I guess. I'm going to be ready to be done with the cycle of seemingly endless tests and papers and class and dining hall lunches broken up by weekends of oblivion (whether that means sleep, alcohol, or just zoning out watching The Simpsons). The only trouble is knowing what to do when it ends.
Reality Bites (1994) deals somewhat with that question of how to make sense of your life when you're done with college, still living with the same friends and preoccupied with the same things but faced with the reality of finding a job and taking care of yourself. The movie acts as if this was a problem specifically for Generation X. The main character, Lalaina, makes a documentary about the search for identity among people in her age group, and her friends deal with "contemporary" problems like coming out to one's parents and the threat of AIDS. But it's been 15 years since Reality Bites came out, and though the circumstances of the world have changed a lot, I don't think the mid-twenties feeling of confusion is much different.
This part of life has been the subject of many movies, and I tend to like them a lot. Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming, Cameron Crowe's Singles, and Zach Braff's Garden State are all movies I loved watching. This movie might be a little too self-conscious for its own good--the dialogue, while fun to listen to, is slangy and sarcastic to the point of artificiality, much like the movie Juno. And its focus on Lalaina, who can't add 85 and 45 in her head or define irony despite being the valedictorian of her college graduating class, leaves some potentially interesting supporting characters feeling unfinished. But I think it has some interesting things to say, mostly in the scenes that are supposed to be footage from Lalaina's documentary.
Two of those scenes come courtesy of Janeane Garofalo's character Vickie, my favorite person in the movie. In one, she visits a free clinic to get tested for AIDS, with Lalaina and her camera tagging along. She jokes and grins about the ordeal, throwing up a wall of sarcasm, but suddenly she admits that she's there because a friend tested positive for AIDS. The camera lingers on her as her mask drops and she falls silent, obviously worried. In another scene, she folds sweaters at the Gap while talking about her success as the store manager. Here she also rolls her eyes and jokes, but her wall of sarcasm falls again, and this time it's masking real joy and pride in her work. I liked the idea that jobs don't have to pay a lot of money or require a college education to be worthwhile to the person in them. Lalaina may have aspirations to change the world or create great art, but for Vickie the Gap is surprisingly fulfilling, and she's mostly okay with that.
It reminds me a lot of what I was saying about Adventureland, of crappy temporary jobs turning out better than ever expected. Sometimes I feel like my eventual search for a prestigious job that uses my degree will just be the result of societal pressure. On the other hand, Lalaina's documentary, the kind of thing I want to make someday, also inspires me. Whatever I end up doing, I hope movies have something to do with it.
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