The Roommate

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	2011
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Christian E. Christiansen
Genre:	You might have seen this before….
Starring:	Leighton Meester, Minka Kelly, Cam Gigandet, Alyson Michalka, Danneel Ackles
Rating:	2/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1265990/
Tagline:	2,000 colleges. 8 million roommates. Which one will you get?
Favourite line:	None worth mentioning

Don’t you just love it when they remake movies without crediting the original?

The plot:
A young fashion student heads to college and is saddled with a new roommate. To begin with, the roommate seems just a bit quirky; quiet, timid, not at all outgoing. You know, shy-like.
We've all met them.
Soon, though, the roommate begins to exhibit disturbing behaviour and before you can say Jennifer Jason Leigh, she's a full fledged psycho, obsessed with the fashion student and determined that they be together.
Forever.

That's right, it's Single White Female for the new generation.
The generation that don't demand that their scary movies are at all scary.
The generation that don't demand that their actors can actually...erm...act.
The generation that don't seem to realise that this movie had already been made, some 19 years earlier, and in a far superior manner.
Let's look at the evidence.
1: Jennifer Jason Leigh is not in this movie. Now, whilst Leighton Meester is actually OK in her role as the manic-depressive pussy steamer, she simply can't compete with Leigh's deliciously deviant take on the same character.
2: This just isn't scary. Plain and simple. Where Single White Female was edgy and dark and had a simmering air of menace, this is tepid and weak and lily-livered.
3: The cast are all so damn good looking, none of it seems real. Sure, Fonda and Leigh are hardly bad to look at, but these freaks, both male and female, are all so photogenic you spend most of the movie hoping that the dormitory sprinkler system suddenly activates and sprays them all with fucking acid.
4: There is a lack of real crescendo. Where SWF gradually built to it's finale, this one trickles along then just goes BANG, again diluting any sense of menace that should have been present.
Whilst not the worst film I've seen this year, it will probably make the bottom ten when the year's done.
OK for 16 year olds is my verdict, for the rest of us just fairly tedious.