Reality (2014 film)

Reality
Theatrical release poster
French	Réalité
Directed by	Quentin Dupieux
Written by	Quentin Dupieux
Produced by	Josef Lieck Diane Jassem Kevos Van Der Meiren Gregory Bernard
Starring	Alain Chabat Jonathan Lambert Élodie Bouchez Eric Wareheim John Glover Jon Heder
Cinematography	Quentin Dupieux
Edited by	Quentin Dupieux
Music by	Thomas Garner
Production companies	Realitism Films Versus Production
Distributed by	Diaphana Distribution (France) O'Brother Distribution (Belgium)
Release dates	28 August 2014 (2014-08-28) (Venice) 18 February 2015 (2015-02-18) (France) 15 February 2015 (2015-02-15) (Belgium)
Running time	87 minutes
Countries	France Belgium
Languages	French English
Budget	€1.8 million
Box office	$429,220

Reality (French: Réalité) is a 2014 surreal comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Dupieux. It stars Alain Chabat, Jonathan Lambert, Élodie Bouchez, Eric Wareheim, John Glover and Jon Heder.

The film premiered in the Horizons section of the 71st Venice International Film Festival on 28 August 2014. It was released in France on 18 February 2015 by Diaphana Distribution and in Belgium on 25 February 2015 by O'Brother Distribution.

Premise

A wannabe director is given 48 hours by a producer to find the best groan of pain, worthy of an Oscar, as the only condition to back his film. Meanwhile, reality, dreams, and fiction repeatedly overlap.

Cast

• Alain Chabat as Jason Tantra
• Jonathan Lambert as Bob Marshall
• Élodie Bouchez as Alice Tantra
• Kyla Kenedy as Reality
• Eric Wareheim as Henri
• John Glover as Zog
• Jon Heder as Dennis
• Matt Battaglia as Mike
• Susan Diol as Gaby
• Bambadjan Bamba as Tony
• Patrick Bristow as Klaus
• Sandra Nelson as Isabella
• Carol Locatell as Lucienne
• Erik Passoja as Billie
• Jonathan Spencer as Blue
• Lola Delon as Zog's Assistant
• Roxane Mesquida as Awards Hostess
• Michel Hazanavicius as Award Presenter
• Brad Greenquist as Jacques
• Axelle Cummings as The Receptionist
• Brandon Gage as Serge
• Raevan Lee Hanan as Luci

Thomas Bangalter, husband of Bouchez and former member of Daft Punk, has a cameo in the film. He plays the patient in the dermatologist's waiting room.

Music

The soundtrack consists of only the first five minutes of "Music with Changing Parts" by Philip Glass.

This track by Philip Glass dates back to 1971. When you listen to it, in the film, it looks very simple but in reality it's a piece of almost 1h30 that keeps evolving in a subtle way. I only use the first five minutes. I could have made a Canada Dry music that imitates Philip Glass but it would have been much less inspired.

I listened to Philip Glass's entire discography. I was looking for the perfect thing and I fell in love with it. Given its duration, the idea at the beginning was to use several passages of the song, especially since we had managed to negotiate the rights with the publishers. But during the assembly I realized that if we do not have the start, the track is incomprehensible.

This way of using the first five minutes of the song creates an impression of endless loop, it becomes almost distressing. There is never a climax, we always come back to the same point. I came to this conclusion very quickly, on the set, even before thinking of Philip Glass. I did not want to do a BO, to accompany the film with small musical intentions as we usually do. You needed one piece of music that keeps coming back.

— Quentin Dupieux

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The French cinema site AlloCiné gave the film a rating of 3.6/5 stars based on 32 reviews.

External links

• Official website
• Reality at IMDb 
• Reality at Rotten Tomatoes