THE ROOMMATE (2011)

Genre: Thriller
Director: Christian E. Christiansen
Cast: Leighton Meester, Alyson Michalka, Danneel Harris, Cam Gigandet, Minka Kelly, Matt Lanter, Frances Fisher, Billy Zane, Alex Meraz
RunTime: 1 hr 32 mins
Released By:  Sony Pictures Releasing International
Rating: NC-16 (Disturbing Content)
Official Website:  http://www.theroommate-movie.com/

Opening Day: 29 April 2011

Synopsis: "The Roommate" is a psychological thriller about a deranged college freshman, Rebecca (Meester), who becomes dangerously obsessed with her new roommate, Sara (Kelly).

Movie Review:

Sarah and Rebecca find themselves rooming together as they begin their freshman year in college. As they discover in each other mutual interests in art and fashion and share other normal college girl details of self-introduction, they quickly become fast friends. Much to the disadvantage of Sarah’s social life and physical safety, however, the similarities between the two can only end there. Things take a turn downwards when Rebecca forms an unhealthy attachment towards her newfound friend - to put it mildly. To put it horribly, she becomes, erm, plain crazy.

The main barriers that prevent this movie from transcending the forgettable teen thriller status are the typical flimsy teen thriller plot and its logic-deficient teen thriller characters. For one, the story does not seem to try to stop itself from laying out a red carpet for Rebecca to work her madness on as it stumbles from one predictable scene to another. On top of that, those around her seem to encourage her behaviour even more.

According to Hollywood gossip writers, those who do not try hard enough to stop a person from going on a self-indulgent rampage are coined as enablers. One can safely say that all of those people in Rebecca’s life are indeed, whether they realize it or not, enablers. Her super wealthy parents do not exactly keep a tight watch on their daughter’s condition. In fact, her mother could only wonder aloud to Sarah if she had been taking her meds during a Thanksgiving visit. The irresponsible party chick down the hall that left Sarah alone at a club without a ride home gets mentally and physically attacked by Rebecca as punishment, but simply takes her murder threat and slinks away to another college hall without pursuing justice or caring enough to save Sarah. And Sarah herself, seem to accept her roommate’s antics a little too late without listening to the early alarm bells ringing when those close to her – even her pet kitten, gets removed one by one.

Playing the mentally disturbed Rebecca is Leighton Meester – who not ironically, is the resident self-proclaimed crazy b*tch (metaphorically speaking) on television’s Gossip Girl. If there were a highlight throughout the whole movie, it would have to be her performance. She manages to act out normality with a subtle disengagement from reality while keeping her crazy episodes convincing without being over the top. What is missing however is a reason for the audience to sympathize with her. Further elaboration on her condition could have been helpful to make her character more three dimensional and complex.

It does attempt to do so when Rebecca brings Sarah home and they chance upon the former’s high school friend that is played by Nina Dobrev of Vampire Diaries, who hints at some old friendship mishap between the two. This is unfortunately left unexplored by the plot. For those who keep up with American adolescent tv, it should be obvious by now that the teen movie is banking on the cast (Sarah herself, is played by Minka Kelly of Friday Night Lights) to sell itself to the youth demographic. Why? Probably because the makers were not all that confident that audiences would watch it for reasons other than ‘fangirl-ing’ over their favourite pretty tv stars

Movie Rating:



(If dumb teen thriller characters don’t drive you nuts, then enjoy the cheap thrill of The Roommate)

Reviewed by Siti Nursyafiqa