Reality () is a 2014 surreal comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Dupieux. It stars Alain Chabat, Jonathan Lambert, ÃÂlodie 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.
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.
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.
The soundtrack consists of only the first five minutes of "Music with Changing Parts" by Philip Glass.
Reality grossed $408,49 in France and grossed $423,619 worldwide.
Reality was released on 18 February 2015 on Blu-ray.
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.
Mark Adams of Screen Daily wrote: "Relishing its oddball sensibility, multi-hyphenate Dupieux takes his film into weird territory, and while perhaps not as knowingly tacky as Wrong Cops this new offering is a bizarre hybrid of horror and the surreal. Premiering at Venice, it will please his fans but leave others wondering what is going on."
Boyd Van Hoeij of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "French director Quentin Dupieux is slowly but surely carving a niche for himself as the guy who makes weird-but-not-necessarily-funny movies, and his latest concoction, Reality (Realite), perfectly fits this description."
Peter Debruge of Variety wrote: "Turning its attention to Hollywood (sort of), Rubber director Quentin Dupieux's latest unfunny effort offers more heavy repetitive beats and surreal content."
Simon Abrams of the Chicago Sun Times wrote: "Reality is consistently effective because Dupieux seems to know exactly what he wants to say, no matter how juvenile or nonsensical.