Have you ever seen Single White Female? Or Fatal Attraction? The Roommate is like that, but for stupid people. Suspend your disbelief for a couple hours and picture Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester as college freshmen. I get that they’ve played high schoolers on TV, but they’re both pushing 25. But nobody wants to see an awkward 18 year old get involved in sexy stalking, right?
The movie starts out as Sara (Minka Kelly) pulls up in a cab to the University of Los Angeles, and has the most stress-free move-in day I have ever seen. She only has one suitcase with her, because, you see, she is a small town girl from Des Moines with big city dreams of becoming a fashion designer in LA. She settles into her room, and goes off to party with her new friends that night, by which time her new roommate hasn’t shown up. They go to a frat party and she flirts with one of the Twilight vampires. When she gets back to the dorm, still drunk, her new roommate Rebecca (Meester) has arrived, and is asleep.
The next day they bond by doing stupid girl shit, and we learn more about their characters. Rebecca is rich, from Beverly Hills, and a brooding artist. She doesn’t like people looking at her artwork until it’s perfect. She doesn’t really like “the club scene.” RED ALERT WEIRDO, AMIRIGHT?
Sara has a dead sister named Emily, who she commemorated with a tattoo on her boob. Well, “over her heart.” She doesn’t like anyone touching her necklace, which is the only thing she kept from her dead sister. DON’T TOUCH IT. Also, she made a pact with her high school boyfriend that they would go to school together, preferably Brown. She got into Brown, he didn’t, so she enrolled at ULA to keep the promise. But he took her vacant space at Brown and now she won’t answer his calls. It’s over, o-v-e-r, Jason!
Things go from mildly concerning to creepy pretty fast. At first, Rebecca is just a little sweet, a little overbearing. She pops up after classes with Lattes in hand. She gets upset when Sara shows up back at the dorm late at night after partying with the Twilight Vampire and that Girl From Phil of the Future. It’s okay though, because they’re best friends forever. Basically, girl is jealous because she doesn’t have any other friends, and spends all her time drawing. THEN, the crazy starts showing.
While Girl From Phil of the Future is showering at the dorm, the lights go out, and she gets attacked. By Rebecca, in the shower. She rips out her belly button ring because she’s a bad influence on Sara, and tells her to stay away. That definitely works.
Sara has a lesbian fashion designer friend who’s Rachel from One Tree Hill, which is hilarious because she’s probably the same age or younger than Minka Kelly. She tells Sara that since she’s always on the road, she can totally move into her swanky apartment rent-free. She can also bring the kitten that they’ve have secretly been keeping in their dorm.
Rebecca takes care of this whole moving-out thing with a two-step plan. She goes out to a club where she somehow knows that lesbian fashion designer will be, and seduces her. Then while she’s doing laundry, she accidently shoves Cuddles into the dryer. No cat, no reason to move out, right? Logic!
While Sara is out with her new Vampire boyfriend (Stephen?), Rebecca is again worried because she’s not answering her phone. She hears it ringing on Sara’s desk, and it’s ex-bf Jason. She answers it, pretends to be Sara, and the twosome have insane phone sex. Then she tells him never to call again. Okay.
Sara mentions that Vampire Boyfriend wants her to stay with him on campus for Thanksgiving, instead of going to Rebecca’s house. This does not please Crazypants. So she fakes an assault by punching herself in the eye and slicing her stomach with an exacto knife. When Sara finds her in the dorm bloody and battered, she feels guilty and agrees to go home. Thanksgiving is intense because her parents constantly ask Sara if their daughter is taking her meds. RED FLAG. They run into a group of girls at a coffee shop that promptly turn and walk away once they recognize Rebecca. RED FLAG. They go to get Rebecca a tattoo, and she gets an identical one to the dead sister boob memorial. “So they can be like real sisters now.”
So back at home, Sara finds an unopened bottle of Schizophrenia meds in Rebecca’s desk, along with a bunch of drawings of her face. She moves into the frat house with the bf and leaves Rebecca stewing. Mainly by ripping apart their armchair with a pair of pliers. Former bf Jason shows up at the dorm looking for Sara for some reason, and leaves a note with his room number at the Roosevelt (Where are these kids getting money?). Rebecca dresses as Sara, slips into the dark hotel room, then sex-murders him with the aforementioned pliers. Girl.
Sara gets a mysterious call from lesbian fashion designer and races to her fancy apartment. LFD is tied up and gagged in bed, and Rebecca’s got a gun to her head. She tells Sara that there are too many people getting in the way of their friendship, and she needs to move home ASAP. Sara agrees, and tries to back out of the room, but Rebecca decides she has to finish LFD off with a plastic Target bag over the head. Then the cat fight starts. Sara temporarily knocks Rebecca out and runs for the fire escape to go get help. The fire escape breaks(?) and she’s left dangling over the edge. Then Stephen somehow shows up to rescue her, but Rebecca hits him over the head with a lamp. It’s Super Effective!
More cat fighting ensues, and eventually Sara slams Rebecca so hard that she dies. LFD is alive, Stephen is somehow alive, everyone is happy. The movie ends with Sara moving back into their dorm room by herself because she’s dealt with “enough roommates for a lifetime!” LOL!!!!
-Samantha Wilson
