Review of The Roommate (2008) by Lewis C — 22 May 2011

"You can call me Emily if you want.".

I expected The Roommate to be a train-wreck, given all the negative reviews it received. But surprisingly, it wasn't terrible. It's a pretty generic thriller about obsession, and it certainly does nothing new, but I've seen much worse.

New college student Sara (Minka Kelly) moves into her dorm and meets her roommate, Rebecca (Leighton Meester). The girls get along well enough, despite Rebecca's penchant for being over-protective, but soon Sara starts to notice that some things about the way Rebecca acts towards other people who share Sara's time are quite...odd. I'm sure you can guess where the plot goes from there. This isn't a movie that's hard to figure out, and there are no shocking plot twists, or anything like that. The Roommate doesn't get any points for originality, to say the least.

The cast is certainly pretty (toss Aly Michalka, Danneel Harris, Nina Dobrev, and a perpetually smarmy-looking Cam Gigandet in with Meester and Kelly), and they're mostly successful in roles that don't ask them to do a whole lot. Meester is given what's probably the most demanding part, but the fact that the script lacks any real teeth makes her attempts at being sinister decent, at best.

The movie is short, which is a good thing. This isn't the kind of plot that needs to be stretched out. As I said, it wasn't horrible. I didn't feel like I was wasting my time as I was watching it. But unless you're a big fan of some of the cast, you're really no missing anything if you decide to skip The Roommate.