The Roommate

The Roommate (2011)

Went to see this movie yesterday. Haven't been to the movie theatre in a long time and, despite fairly low expectations of this flick, could not deny my trashy yearnings.

About a young woman (Mink Kelly) who claims to be attending university despite only taking one course there and her creepy roommate (Leighton Meester) who never seems to go to class at all. I don't feel that I really have to elaborate on the plot much more than that but for the sake of filling up space here, Creepy Girl quickly befriends Normal Girl. They are instantly super-buds doing everything together. But when Normal Girl tries to have normal friends, Creepy Girl freaks out.

Turns out Creepy Girl is schizophrenic (always blame it on the schizos - they get a really bad rap, you know that? I'm surprised there hasn't been a louder outburst about the portrayal of schizophrenics, psycho- and sociopaths in movies. When The Da Vinci Code came out folks got pissed off about the constant portrayal of albinos as victims in movies so I have to wonder what the schizophrenics have to say about this shit) and does not want Normal Girl to do anything but hang out with her, going so far as to threaten her slutty friends, getting her sleazy teacher (played by Billy Zane who is way hotter than Normal Girl's boyfriend) fired and murdering her persistent ex.

The only thing she doesn't do is attack Normal Girl's new boyfriend (Cam Gigandet) for whatever reason. Sure, she stalks him in the library but she never actually does anything (insofar as I remember, I wasn't really paying attention). I mean, she rips another girl's belly ring out and keeps a woman tied up in a bedroom for at least a few days but she never even so much as threatens Boy Toy. Go figure.

But whatever. This movie was way too predictable to be even slightly creepy. Honestly, as soon as that little kitten walked on to the screen I found myself going "ah fuck" coz I knew it was going to end up dead and/or mutilated at some point. Yeah, it was kind icky when it actually happened but not that disturbing.

The only thing that surprised me was that the situation didn't escalate to murder before it did, and that there was only one casualty (apart from the kitten, and Creepy Girl herself. And possibly that other woman. Did she die? The camera was shaking around so much at the end, I couldn't really tell what was going on).

The movie sort of tried to push the boundaries of edginess with a really vague masturbation scene and some hinted lesbianism but they really pussied out in that department too. Some hardcore girl-on-girl action probably would have done the movie good actually, not to mention drawing a good sized audience.

All in all, the only good part of this movie was the trailers, and the rest of it should probably end up in the toilet, being little more than a waste of some good looking young actresses who will be lucky to go on to anything more before Hollywood disposes of them.

END

Directed by: Christian E. Christiansen. Written by: Sonny Mallhi. Starring: Minka Kelly, Leighton Meester, Cam Gigandet, Billy Zane, Daneel Harris, Alyson Michalka.