Director: Christian E. Christiansen
Starring: Leighton Meester, Minka Kelly
Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1265990/
The Roommate starts out with some happenin’ modern rock
music as our main character Sara gets to college in her shiny yellow car on a
bright, sunny day with lots of other smiling, hair-gel-infested Dawson’s Creek
rejects. She’s so cool that she goes to a party the first night and turns some
guy down at first, yet kisses him anyway when he helps her drag her drunk
friend to the elevator:
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| He goes so far as to spill beer on Sara just to talk to her, then has to help her carry her drunk friend away and he STILL doesn't get laid! |
I’d call her a slut, but The Roommate takes a twist and has
these two become boyfriend and girlfriend for the rest of the movie! Because
every romantic comedy needs a couple to focus on and nothing says romance for a college frat boy like drunken debauchery and the girl turning him down and yet teasing him in a really bitchy way anyway...well, actually I shouldn't be sarcastic about that, because it's probably really true.
Then we meet Rebecca, Sara’s roommate. Rebecca doesn’t want
to have a nickname, so that must mean she's insane:
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| "We oppose anyone who doesn't like nicknames!" |
Sara starts going out with the other girls to clubs and
parties and stuff, and hijinks ensue when one of the girls leaves her there on
her own even though she doesn’t know the area! Rebecca comes to meet her later, and she and Sara go walking around town, taking pictures for
their Facebook profiles (which will never actually be shown, considering the makers of the movie could not pony up enough
money to use Facebook’s likeness in the film). Then Sara reveals that she tattooed
her sister’s name onto her chest in remembrance of her tragic death several years
earlier! Ha ha ha! Oh, how silly…wait, I think that was supposed to be a serious part…maybe…?
Rebecca then takes things into her own hands and attacks the
one preppy partier girl in the shower, threatening her if she ever comes near
Sara again. Gee. This scene could have almost been in a horror movie if she had
actually done anything harmful to the
girl, but all she does is pull out her belly ring and say “You’re a bad influence on her!” Ha ha! Oh, man, that is over the top.
Then Sara finds a cat outside and takes it back to her dorm,
naming it Cuddles, because every romantic comedy needs a good cute animal. After
that, Rebecca starts to do all sorts of nice things for Sara to show her
affection, like putting up posters of her favorite movies and buying tickets to
see art shows she likes. However, Sara already has plans – romantic plans!
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| Don't worry, it's a PG-13, so you won't actually see anything during this scene... |
This leaves Rebecca alone in the room to call Sara's ex boyfriend, pretending to be Sara and telling him to stop calling her all the time, which he has been doing all movie up until now. Oh the hijinks that could possibly ensue from this...got to admit, though, it is pretty stupid how the ex boyfriend can't seem to tell that it isn't really Sara on the phone. That's stretching things a little too far.
And
then because Sara wants to move in with some other friend of hers, Rebecca kills the cat by putting
it in a dryer:
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| The Roommate: it advocates the killing of kittens! |
You know, I would cite this part as one of the movie’s
flaws, except frankly I’ve seen worse in Will Ferrel movies anyway.
Then it’s statutory rape fun time as their teacher Billy
Zane puts the moves on Sara and kisses her, and as she tells Rebecca very calmly,
Rebecca forms a plan. She then immediately goes and seduces him, records the
whole thing on a random tape recorder she happens to have on her at the time and twists things around to make it look like he came onto her instead of what actually happened. This is clearly one of the cleverest scenes in the film, showing Rebecca's almost Bugs Bunny levels of trickery as she gets the teacher to quit his job the very next day! Odd. This could almost be a serious plotline, if handled in a more dramatic film, but The Roommate just uses it as a comedic device to make us laugh.
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| The Roommate: it advocates statutory rape! |
Afterwards, Rebecca cons Sara into going back home with her
by pretending to get stabbed and beat up – hilarious! – and they go to meet her
parents. There we see that in another wacky twist, even though they’re her
parents, they’re scared shitless of her. She
also takes Sara out around the town and we see that every other kid in town is
scared of her, too, even this one girl who she drew a ton of pictures of and stalked, or something, I guess...maybe. I don’t
exactly know what this scene is going
for, it's incredibly confused and poorly explained, but since it’s got almost no drama or weight to it, I’ll assume it’s a
funny scene again just so I don't have to think too much about anything. Hallelujah for that!
Also note that Rebecca’s mom asks Sara if Rebecca has been
taking her medication, which Sara and her new boyfriend find later hidden in a
drawer! Apparently she hasn’t been taking it at all! So yeah, this crazy girl who goes around killing kittens in
dryers and manipulating everyone around her while obsessing over various girls
who give her attention, SHOULD HAVE been on medication this whole time! Is the
movie suggesting that anyone who is on medication, if taken off, would become a
psychotic serial killer? And for that matter, how did she even get into college
if she was this ready to fly off the hook for no reason, without being provoked or anything? Shouldn’t she have been in a mental
ward somewhere? This movie had better handle these delicate matters tastefully. Hmph. I expect nothing less from a teen comedy film.
Back at school, Sara’s ex boyfriend who has been harassing
her over the phone the whole movie comes to visit her. How suspenseful; a love
triangle! Finally the more romantic side of The Roommate comes to light. I was
beginning to think this was one of those movies where the romance was just
phoned in and contrived…can’t imagine that
with The Roommate though.
So long story short, Rebecca kills him with a knife while
pretending to be Sara, imitating a scene from Single White Female as much of
the movie has done so far…ew, what are these horror elements doing in my teen comedy? That's just grotesque and not funny at all.
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| Reminds me of a scene in Black Christmas. Odd for a teen film...Black Christmas was pretty brutal at times. |
But what is
funny is lesbian sex!
What, you really think it’s cheap to use this as a throwaway
gimmick this late into the film? Pfft. You PC wimp. Don’t be such a prude.
Sara gets a text from her friend who she’s living with, who
is also the same woman Rebecca was hitting on at the nightclub, telling her to
come to the apartment. There, she and Rebecca end up in a hilariously over the
top shouting match in which Rebecca shouts at Sara for not appreciating her wonderful
attempts at friendship like killing Sara's cat and ex-boyfriend…see what I
mean? This movie is the cutting edge of ludicrous, bizarre comedy. It's almost like some kind of weird black indie comedy or something. It's nice to see the movie playing around with genre conventions a bit and giving us at least something new.
The fight
that ensues is almost as funny, with a lot of it centering on having Sara dangling
from an open window ledge…somehow, I guess. Sara tells Rebecca they aren’t friends, stabbing her in
the back metaphorically, followed by stabbing her in the back physically with a knife! Oh The Roommate…always
playing with my expectations. Then the movie ends with happy music and Sara deciding that
she “doesn’t want to have a roommate for a while”…get it? She's underplaying the seriousness of the situation by giving a lighthearted ending quip! That's a considerate way to end the film, as now we won't be depressed due to the deaths of several people as well as an innocent kitten.
So yeah, all in all, The Roommate wasn’t bad and actually took a few risks for a teen comedy, like having dark almost horror-movie-esque lighting (in fact it's...almost hard to see anything at times) and introducing some deviously placed scenes that could have possibly been tense or dramatic, but playing with our expectations and making them lighthearted and comedic instead. The film also sneaks in some more risque jokes, like trying to make us think it's believable for Rebecca to think the terrible things she did to Sara are signs of a good friendship. That's pretty daring for a teen movie intended for kids who aren't even old enough to drive yet.
But most of the movie is still pretty conventional, and tells the classic story of a crazy girl falling over her feet and going to ridiculous lengths to please her dense and un-knowing new roommate. It's got some light laughs and a few pretty clever moments. Sure, the acting isn't great and there are a few plot holes, but mostly it's passable enough. I mean, it's not like this movie was trying to be serious or anything! Imagine if The Roommate was intended to be a horror movie, for example. Then it would have just been a horribly cliched, emotionally stunted, poorly written and hacked up pile of steaming wretched manure with no taste or class.
Luckily it isn’t intended to be serious at all. Luckily.
All images copyright of their original owners. I do not own any of them.
All images copyright of their original owners. I do not own any of them.
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