MOVIE REVIEW : A Welcome Dose of ‘Reality’ : The romantic comedy about Generation X is edgy and alive, thanks to a clever script, talented cast and first-time director Ben Stiller.

We know them but we know them not, and the feeling is mutual. The children of television and divorce, they are cynical and suspicious beyond their years, especially of a certain earlier generation that “disemboweled the revolution for a pair of running shoes.” But being smart and hip doesn’t save them from being vulnerable, and that sense of characters at the mercy of life’s mutability is what makes “Reality Bites” a romantic comedy that is cheerful, edgy and alive.

Starring Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Ben Stiller, who also makes his directing debut, “Reality Bites” (citywide) is not the first film to deal with the resentful members of Generation X, fed up with their label before it even caught on.

But, working from a clever and clear-eyed script by Helen Childress and with a graceful and talented cast, Stiller has seen to it that the protagonists of “Reality Bites” are individuals before they are archetypes. Their comic/romantic dilemmas may be venerable, but they do not feel arbitrarily imposed.

Writer Childress, herself only 23, has created characters with the distinctive sensibility of her mordant peers, just-out-of-college types who say things like “the Big Gulp is the most profound invention of my lifetime” and consider the Free Clinic AIDS test “the rite of passage for our generation.”

It is a generation represented by four college friends who met in Houston on the day of their graduation through the video eye of Lelaina Pierce (Ryder), the class valedictorian. She is taping her pals for future use in a documentary about their search for identity that complements her day job as a production assistant for Grant Gubler (John Mahoney), the genial/sadistic host of local TV’s “Good Morning, Grant!”

Having a job at all puts Lelaina one up on her trio of friends. Sammy Gray (Steve Zahn) is the most spaced-out, talking blankly about liking “a career or something.” Vickie Miner (Janeane Garofalo) is the most aggressive, especially where men are concerned, keeping a numbered list of conquests and embracing promiscuity because she never wants to lose the passion of that first night. And then there is Troy.

As played by Ethan Hawke, Troy Dyer, with his greasy hair, straggly goatee and a motley collection of pullover shirts, is in part the classic slacker, derided by Lelaina as “a master of time suckage” who does nothing but “eat and couch and fondle the remote.”

On the other hand, Troy is probably the smartest of the group, a serious reader of philosophy who’s had a half-buried romantic interest in Lelaina for years. But Troy, the James Dean hipster who waffles on commitment, is stuck in his romantic loner pose, refusing to acknowledge emotion and taking refuge in the kind of troubled sarcasm that make him his own worst enemy.

Troy and Lelaina might have remained in this extended limbo for a considerable time if it wasn’t for her chance meeting with Michael Grates (Stiller). A college dropout turned vice president of In Your Face TV, described as “MTV with an edge,” he is both squarer and more successful than all of Lelaina’s friends put together. But, to their mutual surprise, these two have a real appeal for each other, which pushes the displaced Troy even further into an off-puttingly sardonic frame of mind.

In addition to pungent, gleefully funny dialogue, of which there is plenty, what makes a triangle this traditional feel fresh is the casting and performances, which, starting with Ryder as the cynosure of all eyes, couldn’t be bettered across the board.

After such period films as “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and “The Age of Innocence,” the actress returns here to the kind of talking-about-my-generation role she had in “Heathers,” and it is a treat to see how much naturalness and assurance she brings to what could have been a predigested performance.

The same is even more true for the two men who are focused on her. Ethan Hawke allows himself to be much more disturbingly unpleasant and abrasive than usual as the agonized Troy, and director Stiller, understanding perfectly that the more honestly appealing Michael is, the more involving the joust with Troy becomes, does so well with his part that nothing about this rivalry seems at all predetermined.

Though Stiller and Childress have taken pains to be as specific to their generation as possible, they also understand that at their core these ideals versus the real world dilemmas are timeless. Stiller, whose dead-on comic touch is not surprising given the craftiness of his Fox network show, displays in addition an empathy for these characters that makes a nice fit with how smart their dialogue is. He believes their stories have value, and that makes all the difference.

‘Reality Bites’

Winona Ryder: Lelaina Pierce Ethan Hawke: Troy Dyer Ben Stiller: Michael Grates Janeane Garofalo: Vickie Miner Steve Zahn: Sammy Gray

A Jersey Films production, released by Universal Pictures. Director Ben Stiller. Producers Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg. Executive producers Stacey Sher, Wm. Barclay Malcolm. Screenplay Helen Childress. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. Editor Lisa Churgin. Costumes Eugenie Bafaloukos. Music Karl Wallinger. Production design Sharon Seymour. Art director Jeff Knipp. Set designer Michael Armani. Set decorator Maggie Martin. Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes.

MPAA rating: PG-13, for “some language, drug content and sexuality.” Times guidelines: one scene of romantic lovemaking.