The Roommate Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A college student finds herself stalked by her roommate after the roommate develops an obsessive fixation toward her.

Review: Once upon a time there was this movie called "Single White Female," and 19 years later there was an unofficial remake calling itself "The Roommate." If you have watched SWF, then you have essentially watched this film except this is significantly inferior. I don't know what they were thinking--SWF was an edgy, erotic thriller bordering an X-rating, while this film merely pulled a switcheroo on certain plot elements and struggled to get the PG-13 rating. I'm going to be honest, literally 5 minutes into the film I was already feeling homicidal. Bad scenes, bad setup, weak acting, and college cliches galore is not how you want to come out swinging when you know people will notice the parallels to SWF. The only aspect that this film has as an advantage over SWF is that the actresses are way more attractive...to me at least; to be fair, SWF was obviously trying to reach an older demographic anyway.

So what exactly are all the similarities? At a glance, Leighton Meester, as the crazy Rebecca, doesn't seem as obsessed as Hedy from SWF. Likewise, Minka Kelly, as Sara, comes off more as a goody two shoes compared to Allie, who was more of your average '90s woman. But don't let any of this fool you, because the reason is that this movie lacked the ability to establish their characters with depth. SWF had Hedy losing her sister at a young age and slowly becoming obsessed with Allie, then wanting to become her. Here, Rebecca has no true motive to obsess over Sara, except that she's crazy, and it's strangely Sara that had the sister that died. Both movies have lame ex-boyfriend drama with them being killed after having some kind of sex with the crazy one who they believe is the main girl. SWF had a pervert boss, this movie has a pervert teacher with both being dispatched by the crazy roommate. SWF had a dog that gets killed, this movie has a cat that gets killed. Both movies have some masturbation scene from the crazy one. Allie knew Hedy was officially insane when she died her hair the same, this movie, Sara finally knows Rebecca's crazy when she gets the same tattoo...close enough and the scenes felt the same. And both crazy chicks are stabbed in the back as the finishing blow, although, I don't see how Rebecca died but okay. There are a ton more, but I think you get the idea, and the majority of these plot points feel shallow in comparison to SWF, because the characters are nowhere near as compelling. Oh, but hold on, "The Roommate" does have Sara trying to get a new love interest which is different than SWF. Yes, let's not forget that fucking idiot, Stephen, who can't stop smirking in any scene with the most punchable face that has ever graced film! Oh yes, I'd be doing a serious disservice by failing to mention that little bitch boy. Quit fucking smiling you enormous douchebag! I'm clenching my fists just thinking about this guy.

If we at least had an understanding for why Rebecca was crazy or if there was some revelation at the end of the movie as a cool twist, that might have made things a little better and actually interesting. We get the inference that Rebecca has done this before, but why did things escalate this drastically when dealing with Sara? Lots of reviewers speculate that Rebecca was a lesbian due to a variety of reasons, but I disagree; she comes off as her own Hollywood version of psycho with ill-defined motives due to bad writing. I will say this, Ms. Meester was playing her role with conviction and did a nice job, but she was all alone in this respect and the material was simply too shitacular to salvage. Eh, overall this movie pretty much sucks and took me a long time to finally force myself through; I had watched it when it came out, but it was torturous on a second viewing. Other than the lovely ladies, a few interesting moments, and the fact that I can be shown a photo of Stephen and instantly become motivated to be a boxer, this movie has little else to offer. I guess this may be worth your time if you really like the actors involved, but if you have the option, watch SWF instead and you will see the superior version of this tale.

Notable Moment: When Sara tries to shoot Rebecca and the look on Rebecca's face as a reaction. This is probably the only moment of any true emotion in the whole film since Rebecca was genuinely heartbroken.

Final Rating: 4.5/10

Ms. Meester and Ms. Kelly looking so happy together: