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Friday, July 4, 2025
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HOLLYWOOD THE ROOMMATE
EDITOR'S PICK
Rating: *
There are some movies so filled with every known cliche and camera angle in its
genre that one is left wondering at the bankruptcy of the Hollywood executives
who sponsor such films. Want proof, go watch The Roommate. And that
is indeed the only conceivable reason one could want to watch this dud that is a
horror to the viewers patience.
Sara (Minka Kelly) and Rebecca (Leighton Meester) are roommates at a college
dorm. Only Rebecca, who idolises Sara, is not what the kind gentle roommate she
is supposed to be and gradually begins taking over her life to an expected
ending.
Films in this genre are obvious. What should not be is the passage to that
obvious ending. This film follows a passage that has been trod so much that the
path is no longer a path, but has become a highway.
A copy of the 1992 film Single White Female, this one misses out on
everything that made the original a fun watch. There`s hardly any unexpected
tension, or horror in the idiosyncrasies of the psychotic roommate. Instead you
have bad performances adding to the jamboree of a bad script, direction and
music.
As any movie lover knows, most films in the popular genre are predictable. But
in their predictability, there is believability, an even tone and the reworking
of cliche that makes the film enjoyable. The Roommate makes no attempts to try
anything interesting or new. Not just that but director Christiansen even
blotches up on the predictability of cliches without being convincing about it.
And this has not just to do with the script, which is predictable, but also the
direction, the angles that the director chooses for his shots, that adds to the
predictability thus jarring even the little enjoyment expected even of a film
like this.
The film also follows a usual Hollywood practice, of painting people black and
white. In almost every such movie, there is no sympathy for the psychotic
murderer, something that would have made the experience of watching the movie
interesting.
Not just that, the film also does not sympathise with the viewer, who is left
with a bored headache - that is if they did manage to stay awake through its
duration.
