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| Released: |
2011 |
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| Genre: |
HORROR
THRILLER
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| Origin: |
US |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
91 |
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Time to move out. |
Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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The Roommate is teen-oriented Hollywood hackwork and a blot on the CVs of its director, Christian E. Christiansen and screenwriter Sonny Mallhi.
A young fashion student (Minka Kelly, pictured left) who has come to the University of Los Angeles from the midwest is beautiful and chic, with a sense of style that, according to her lascivious professor (Billy Zane, even more laughable than usual) “can’t be taught”.
Unteachable would be a fairer description of her. This heroine is so dumb that she fails to notice that her new beau (Cam Gigandet) is a would-be date-rapist. Or that he’s way too old to be at college. Or that he’s a really bad actor, who can’t select a book from a library shelf as though he means it.
So I suppose it’s hardly surprising that when, about an hour after the audience, our heroine finally comprehends that her roommate (Leighton Meester, pictured right) is (a) mentally ill and (b) not taking her medication, she fails to behave in a caring or responsible fashion and go the authorities. Of course not. She just hangs around, waiting for said roommate to start cutting people up with a stanley-knife. In the case of the date-rapist, who sadly survives, I felt she could have done a more thorough job.
As you may already have guessed, this is another film, like Swimfan and Obsessed, that is pretty much a scene-by-scene remake of Single White Female (1992). It doesn’t have an original thought in its fluffy little head, unless you count Cuddles the kitten being spun to death in a dryer. In Single White Female, I distinctly remember it was a puppy that perished.
There’s no tension, since it’s obvious from five minutes in how the plot is going to work itself out. You could spend the entire movie texting your friends and not miss a thing, which I suppose its target audience might consider an asset.
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, Minka Kelly 
