Review of The Roommate (2011) by Shiira — 11 Feb 2011

"Single White Female" just turned eighteen, the age of an incoming college freshman. Now look what just came out of the woodworks. "The Roommate" has an animal slaying, a lecherous man who makes an unwanted pass at its heroine, and an unbalanced woman who tries to change herself into a doppleganger, similar to the perennial basic cable favorite.

This familiar seeming story carries so many of the Barbet Schroeder film's traits, the moviegoer can only assume that the baby "S.W.F." is his. In "Single White Female", a computer consulting maven places an ad for a warm body to help occupy her rent-controlled apartment, a replacement for a philandering husband, and ends up with the roommate from hell.

The ad read "professional preferred", not "murderess wanted". But there you go. With its two leads, Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the filmmaker took full advantage of the disparity in looks between the actresses, in which Fonda(a natural beauty by anybody's standards), as Allison Jones, teaches Hedra("Hedy" for short), played by Leigh(a modest-looking thespian not known for turning heads), how to dress, when the mismatched women go shopping, in what perhaps is the film's most pivotal scene.

Moviegoers forget that "Single White Female" starts off as a femme version of "Pygmallion", before it turns into "Pygmallion On Her Own". Likewise, "The Roommate", starring Minka Jones, portraying the part of a hayseed fashion design student, takes it upon herself to reinvent the woman sharing proximal living space with her, but the woman she mentors, Leighton Messner, in a move that's somewhat detrimental to the film's internal logic, is as hot, or hotter than Jones, and probably doesn't need tips on sartorial matters, because her character, the self-possessed Rebecca, is a self-described "clotheshorse", privileged and snooty, who normally wouldn't be caught dead in the Iowa girl's vintage clothing.

"The Roommate" takes a shortcut; it foregoes the "She's All That"-like process of transforming an ugly ducking into a swan, and presents Rebecca as a finished product. Being that the film is already formulaic and derivative, why be half-assed about its banality? Slap on some ungainly glasses and an array of self-defeating outfits on the blonde art major because it's easier to root for a dorky schizophrenic than a beautiful one.

"The Roommate" fails to capture the best thing about "Single White Female", and that's how love, albeit a love riddled with disease, makes us want to be somebody else. Scarily, in Allison's case, that somebody Hedy wants to be, is her.

Conversely, in "The Roommate", there may be a question as to who wants to be who, more. As Sarah eyeballs Rebecca's palatial estate, you hear the loaded girl downplaying her exorbitant wealth, which in turn, makes us hate the"modest" girl on a personal level, unlike Hedra, who remained sympathetic to the very end, in spite of her murderous shenanigans.

Who is the alpha girl? Sarah loses her outright agency, she has a formidable opponent who is both rich and beautiful. Yes, the young woman is friendless, but that could be due in part to her entitled demeanor, a social defect that has nothing to do with her schizophrenia.

For "The Roommate" to work, Rebecca needs to be the underdog. The poor little rich girl has no character arc. In "Single White Female", Hedra starts off as sane; she shows off an incorruptible side of her, the side untouched by madness, her true self, before the voices take over.

The moviegoer understands why Allison takes a shine to the shy woman. On the other hand,"The Roommate" gives Messner one note to play, all bum ones, as the filmmaker conveys Rebecca's dark side, right off the bad, conveyed through lighting, which turns into an ongoing motif; her constant walking in shadows.

Since we know that Rebecca is crazy from the outset, we wonder why Sarah doesn't see it too.