Sara (Minka Kelly) begins her freshman year at U.L.A. and finds a mostly sweet if not a little overprotective roommate in Rebecca (Leighton Meester). As Rebecca becomes more and more clingy, Sara deals with a creepy design professor (Billy Zane) and swoons over a cute drummer frat boy (Cam Gigandet). It isn’t long before Sara realizes that something is up with her roommate, but it might be too late and the consequences might just be fatal.
Comparisons to Single White Female have to be made. But while SWF was sufficiently creepy along with its camp, The Roommate, directed by Christian E. Christiansen is neither creepy nor particularly campy. The movie drags along for 90 minutes, creating a film that is both monotonous and decidedly lacking in suspense. Attempts to make it a sexy psychological thriller fall flat, and as the film trudges toward its inevitably violent conclusion, one can’t help but wonder why viewers should care.
The characters are bland and uninspiring, and Kelly and Meester look so similar that one wonders if it was even an intentional casting choice, because their appearances never once get mentioned. The cinematography and score do nothing to elevate the mood of the film. Nothing about the film rings true–not even the campus itself, which seems more like a gated community out of Melrose Place than a freshman dorm.
Plus, the plot doesn’t make sense. Like, at all.
There’s something to be said for films that are so bad they’re good–they can be fun to watch and laugh at. This is not such a film. Heavy-handed and taking itself way too seriously, The Roommate isn’t even the kind of bad one can enjoy. Skip this one, folks, and revisit the 90s trash-fest that is Single White Female.
The Roommate is out on DVD now.
Pingback: Terrible Movie Review: Monte Carlo (2011) « Early Nerd Special