The Roommate is one of those thrillers whose direction becomes obvious after twenty minutes. You keep watching in the hope of a surprise. It never arrives.
Sara starts college in Los Angeles and moves into a dorm with Rebecca. Her roommate initially seems quiet and friendly, perhaps a little too friendly. That changes into jealousy, manipulation and an increasingly determined attempt to control Sara's life. The escalation follows the familiar pattern of the obsessive-roommate thriller.
The idea could work with a fresh approach. Instead, the film runs through scenes and clichés that other thrillers have handled more convincingly. It neither questions those conventions nor does anything clever with them. Suspense struggles to develop when the next step is visible from so far away.
Leighton Meester salvages what she can. Rebecca has an unsettling energy, sometimes quietly watchful, sometimes openly threatening. Meester remains interesting even when the screenplay lets her down. Minka Kelly's Sara is less distinctive: attractive, frightened and helpless, with little personality beyond those reactions. I'm still a fan of Kelly; her North in Detroit: Become Human moved me to tears. Here, though, Sara feels closer to a soap character than someone I can invest in.
The direction is competent but uninspired. Lighting, camerawork and music seem assembled from a checklist. Even the darker moments feel polished into safety. The film keeps approaching the harder edges of its genre without committing to them. A little more nerve might at least have given it something provocative to say.
What remains is a neatly packaged disappointment: promising ingredients, very little tension and no convincing depth. My rating is three out of five.
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