Roommates

Directed by Chandler Levack, Roommates details the discord that ensues between college roommates Devon Weisz (Sadie Sandler) and Celeste Durand (Chloe East). Filmmaker Levack, armed with a script by Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O’Sullivan, delivers a woefully disposable and forgettable comedy that strikes all the wrong notes right from the get-go, as the movie, which runs a punishingly overlong 107 minutes, suffers from a generic, been-there-done-that feel that’s made all the worse by its recurring emphasis on bottom-of-the-barrel jokes and stereotypes – with the arms-length atmosphere compounded by both Sandler and East’s lackluster (and far from charismatic) efforts as the one-note central characters. (The movie does, at least, boast effective work from an eclectic supporting cast that includes Sarah Sherman, Nick Kroll, and Josh Segarra.) Roommates ultimately goes from bad to worse, too, as it progresses into a tediously episodic midsection focused on the protagonists’ lame, tiresome conflict, while the eye-rollingly hearfelt final stretch, which the film has not earned even slightly, ensures that the whole thing peters out to a fairly aggressive degree – thus confirming the picture’s place as a distressing misfire that couldn’t possibly be farther away from Levack’s comparatively masterful debut, 2022’s I Like Movies.

* out of ****