As I walked into the half empty theater with my friend at my side, I was a little surprised that there weren’t more college students. “The Roommate” is a story about a college freshman who gets roomed with a psychotic, schizophrenic, obsessive maniac. Since we’re all college students in a college town, I figured we could all relate.
As the movie progressed, I realized that maybe the people in the theater, including myself, were the crazy ones. “The Roommate” isn’t a horrible movie… it’s just not good.
What you see in the previews is what you get: a thriller about a college freshman named Sara, played by Minka Kelly, who gets randomly assigned to a dorm with a roommate named Rebecca, played by Leighton Meester. They start off as great friends, saying they could borrow each other’s clothes, going out for coffee and sharing their interests. Sara, of course, is blatantly clueless to the fact that there’s more to Rebecca than what meets the eye.
Great plot! Not. “The Roommate” is a Lifetime movie plot that somehow made it to the big screen. The best part about the movie was Cam Gigandet… and all the sexiness that comes with him.
The worst part about the movie is that Sara has no idea that her roommate is crazy. Now let’s go through a series of events that occur throughout the movie and we can all decide if she’s crazy or not. Clipboards out? Ready, set, go.
Whenever Sara goes out, Rebecca calls her constantly to keep tabs on her. Whenever Sara comes home late, Rebecca freaks out and claims she was worried about her. Rebecca tries on the necklace of Sara’s dead sister that was on Sara’s side of the room, meaning she was obviously snooping in her stuff to begin with. One of Sara’s best friends tells her that Rebecca is crazy and then moves to a different dorm all of a sudden. Rebecca claims Sara is her best friend but they’ve only known each other for five-and-a-half seconds.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve diagnosed her as crazy.
Of course, if Sara knew Rebecca was crazy from the jump, there would be no movie. But because her craziness is so painfully obvious, no one should have picked up the script from the beginning. The movie is just annoyingly predictable. It doesn’t matter how crazy the character is if it comes to no surprise to anyone watching.
Movie producers think they can just get a few hot girls and a few hot guys, put them in college with frat parties, alcohol and sex and just assume that everyone will enjoy it. You know what? They’re right. The film made $15 million its opening weekend and was number one in the box office. But the few people, like myself, who enjoy real cinematography don’t buy it.
Will college students be able to relate? Of course we will. We’ve all had, or still have, that one crazy roommate that we have to keep an eye on. But half of our crazy roommate stories would have created a better plot than this one. Was it entertaining? Sure. But so is Jersey Shore and we all know that’s a hot mess. I give this movie two and a half out of five stars… and a Snooki cry.