Movie Review: The Roommate

The Roommate, or what I like to call Single White Female 2.0, wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was far from amazing or even original, but having said that, it could have been a lot worse.

Friday Night Lights’ Minka Kelly is Sarah Matthews, the beautiful, talented fashion design freshman at University of Los Angeles. Fresh from Des Moines, she has the misfortune of getting a psycho for a roommate. The psycho is Rebecca — not Becky — (Leighton Meester). Before long, Rebecca is staking her claim to Sarah. She wants to be her one and only friend. No one, and I mean no one, not a party girl freshman (Alyson Michalka), a friend from back home (Daneel Harris), an old boyfriend (Matt Lanter), or a new one (Cam Gigandet) will stand in her way.

We know where this one is headed before the previews are over; so, in a movie like this, it’s less about where you are going and more about how you are going to get there. Kelly and Meester have good chemistry but the character of Sarah should have been a little more creeped out a little bit earlier.

Having said that, Meester is pretty creepy and Gigandet is likeable as the requisite boy toy. Billy Zane has a small role as the lecherous design teacher who has designs on young Sarah. Frances Farmer, a great actress, is relegated to an even smaller role as Rebecca's concerned mother.

I had to laugh (unintentionally) when Rebecca terrorized Sarah's friend Tracy while she was in the dorm showers. Tracy gets a bad case of IWGS (Investigative White Girl Syndrome) when the lights go off. I don't know about you, but if I'm in the shower and the lights go off, I'm leaving the bathroom, not sticking around and trying to figure out the mystery of the lights while I'm naked in the dark in the shower. Just leave!

Consider Yourself Warned: Like the psycho movies that came before it (Fatal Attraction and Single White Female), you KNOW bad things are in store for the little kitten Sarah finds outside the dorm. I’m definitely a dog person but I don’t like to see anything bad happen to any cuddly creature. If you don’t like to see bad things happen to cuddly creatures either, you have been warned.

Nevertheless, The Roommate passed my audience test. In other words, those who came out to see this movie seemed to leave the theater pleased. So if this is your cup of tea, take a chance, you might just like it (not love it but like it).