We've all been there: the moment you realize your roommate (college, apartment or otherwise) is a total weirdo. For me it was when I saw that my roommate owned every Criss Angel: Mindfreak-related DVD ever made. I just didn't care to talk to him anymore. Luckily for Sara (Minka Kelly), her new college roommate, Rebecca (Leighton Meester), has no affinity for goofy-looking magicians.
Upon moving into her new college dorm room, things seem to start out normally for Sara, at least, before Rebecca enters the picture. Sara makes friends with friends down the hall quickly enough, and is even invited out to a frat party the first night she moves in, where she meets Stephen (Cam Gigandet), the quintessential improbable combination of nice + dreamboat that seems to work its way into every teen-thriller movie. So after one night after moving in, Sara has friends and a potentially promising future with a total hunk -- not a bad start.
But after Sara gets to know her timid new roommate Rebecca, life starts to take an awkward turn. Rebecca doesn't seem to want to hang out with Sara's friends, or even want Sara to hang out with Sara's friends. Rebecca quickly grows from polite to overbearing to obsessive. As much as Rebecca saves most of her craziness for violent confrontations with Sara's friends, Sara does read signs that her roommate is unstable, and does all she can to prevent the worst from happening.
Or does Sara do all she can? Answer: no. She does not. From the moment Sara first begins to see some of Rebecca's minor idiosyncrasies to the point where Sara actually realizes that Rebecca is horribly disturbed, too much time has passed for us to really feel anything for Sara, or consider her intelligent. I had a college roommate who incessantly hugged my friends whenever they came over, and you know what I did? I moved out the next week.
And what is more irksome is how hollow Rebecca's obsession with Sara is. The reasons behind Rebecca's infatuation are a major bore, and even though the audience gets a chance to see Rebecca's home and parents, it causes even more frustration when the audience sees that she had advantages in life, rather than growing up in a broken home with potentially even more disturbed parents. Rebecca's derangement lacks heart, and boils down to what you would likely expect in a throw-away teen thriller.
And out of all the teen-thrillers, and mainstream thrillers and independent thrillers and so on, Rebecca is without question one of the lamest movie villains. Leighton Meester did her best, but was unfortunately never written to be that "creepy." Rebecca has violent fits, but nothing memorable as far as acting goes, largely because Leighton was never given much to work with. There's a shower scene where she rips out a girl's naval piercing, which is messed up, but that is not a substitute for how captivating a truly mentally disturbed character can be. Rebecca is plain with a violent streak.
It's difficult to blame Sara for her inaction during the film, as Rebecca often goes behind Sara's back to violently shoo away her friends who Rebecca thinks pose a bad influence to Sara. But watching an hour-and-a-half movie where the lead character walks around ignorant to the threats of her psychopathic roommate makes for a pretty boring experience. The film builds up to a showdown in the last act, but if the first seventy minutes of the movie can tell you anything, it's that it's a predictable one, and you won't find yourself and your friends making bets as to which character gets the happy ending.
The Roommate takes the everyday situation of the "weird roommate" and turns it into a thriller, and did not do so in the best way possible. I'd like to see this movie re-written to take place in a prison where Sara would be unable to escape her cellmate. Only then would the audience feel sympathy toward the lead character instead of, well, nothing.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
This Blu-ray comes with the Movie IQ feature which enables the viewer to access an online database of the film's information that can be accessed scene-by-scene, as you're watching the movie. It can lead to production notes, locations, cast information, what song is currently playing -- it's pretty cool, but does require an Internet connection on your Blu-ray player.
Also, there' s a commentary on the film by director Christian E. Christiansen, some deleted/altered scenes, and a few behind-the-scenes pieces: "Dressing Dangerously" that goes over the film's wardrobe, "The Roomate: Next Generation of Stars" that goes a little in depth into the workings of the characters and how the actors played them, and then a standard making-of piece with cast & crew interviews.
"The Roommate" is on sale May 17, 2011 and is rated PG13. Thriller. Directed by Christian E Christiansen. Written by Sonny Mallhi. Starring Billy Zane, Cam Gigandet, Leighton Meester, Minka Kelly.
