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The Roommate

The Roommate: Exciting Tagline, Unimpressive Film

  • Cam GigandetLeighton Meester...
  • DramaThriller
  • Christian E. Christiansen
reviewed by
Omar Atef
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The Roommate: Exciting Tagline, Unimpressive Film

When students go to
college, they don’t pick their roommates; roommates are picked for them. In The Roommate, Sara (Kelly) is a student
who just got into a new college and dreams of becoming a famous designer. As
she arrives on campus, her social life is instantly boosted when she’s
invited to a party, makes friends with Tracy (Michalka), and develops an
instant crush on Stephen (Gigandet).

As everything seems
to be going smoothly, Sara returns to her dorms to find her roommate Rebecca
(Meester) already settled in. As they get to know each other, Rebecca
becomes more than just attached to Sara – she goes from being her roommate to best
friend, and finally she becomes obsessed with becoming her sister. As her obsession grows, Sara starts to
witness strange things happening and unforeseen circumstances that eventually
lead to Rebecca becoming an actual threat to her life.

The Roommate is one of those films where you wish that the minutes get by faster. The
film is supposed to be a thriller but doesn’t feel like one. The plot is beyond
silly, the acting is poorly executed, and scenes of suspense are simply
borrowed from previous films that will leave audiences feeling cheated.

The Roommate plays on the perception of psychological behaviour, where in many
scenes Rebecca displays disturbing mannerisms such as forcibly sticking
earrings into her ears, murdering an animal and cutting herself. The film’s director
was obviously unable to display this disturbing behaviour in a sick way; instead,
the scenes are just mildly amusing.

As the film’s lead, Kelly
gives nothing more than a blunt performance without any signs of emotions or intelligence
whatsoever, and absolutely no charm of any kind – all essential factors that
weren’t there, which clearly prevented her from having any connection with the viewers.

Meester’s
general performance was condensed to either staring at herself in the mirror or just crying
throughout the whole film. Gigandet was passable as the not-that-involved
boyfriend, who played a bigger part towards the end. In fact, he was the only
one who decently acted as if there was actually something weird going on.

Psycho films can
often turn out to be major clichés if not executed carefully and if there’s no fresh
material offered. Case in point is the recently released The Resident starring Hilary Swank. Needless to say, the only thing
exciting about The Roommate is its
tagline.

Like This? Try

Obsessed, Orphan, Disturbia  

360 Tip

This is director Christian E. Christiansen’s first thriller.

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