Roommates, 2026.
Directed by Chandler Levack.
Starring Sadie Sandler, Chloe East, Storm Reid, Aidan Langford, Natasha Lyonne, Nick Kroll, Megan Thee Stallion, Steve Buscemi, Ivy Wolk, Martin Herlihy, Janeane Garofalo, and Sarah Sherman.
SYNOPSIS:
When a hopeful, naive college freshman, Devon, asks the cool and confident Celeste to be her roommate, a blossoming friendship spirals into a war of passive aggression.
Chandler Levack’s first film; I Like Movies, captured the early-2000s through the lens of an asocial film fanatic. Framed in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio it plays like a VHS tape. Mile End Kicks, Levack’s second film, widens the scope to 2.39:1, matching the mythologization of its hero, a music critic during the 2010s indie scene. Roommates, a new Netflix original, shoots for the middle with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio and makes its intentions clear; it’s about making friends and it wants to be liked so it avoids doing anything too risky or interesting.
Sadie Sandler plays Devon, an anxious “everygirl” with no real friends aiming to reinvent herself ahead of her freshman year. Devon is socially aware enough to attend the high school party, but not popular enough to be invited to the after party. Sandler has the same barely contained anger her father Adam has, which is a good tension setter, but the smart thing Levack and co. do is have her play it straight and not silly. Chloe East, who stole the show in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans takes the flashier role as Devon’s roommate Celeste. An edgy, charismatic wild card whose character hints at much darker possibilities the movie doesn’t want to reckon with. The two pair up at orientation and become fast friends, but the friendship turns into a nightmare as Devon gets taken advantage of by Celeste. Celeste feels like a more volatile character that’s been sanded down to fit the tone of a movie night sleepover, and that sanding is representative of the film as a whole.
Everyone here is good looking. Even the weirdos are all conventionally attractive, well styled socially legible people. Levack’s earlier films benefited from specific, off-center presences — performers who could destabilize a scene. Here, there’s no Isaiah Lehtinen to steal the show. The film is contained between its two leads whose chemistry pulls the audience through the bland familiar girlhood beats we’ve seen play out in movies before.
Where Levack remains sharp is in observing social mechanics. The constant mediation of experience through screens — Devon hesitating on putting the cost of a Florida Spring Break trip on her parents’ emergency credit card when it’s one press away, or witnessing her brother be publicly outed watching on a video call feel timely. Others like, Devon entering her dorm to find it empty, punctuated by Celeste’s arrival is staged perfectly with precise control of tension and release. Or when she takes on karaoke set to “Driver’s License” and “Mr. Brightside” and comes into her own. These are more timeless but thanks to Levack they land cleanly, and bridge emotional gaps the script doesn’t fill in. In those moments Levack shows a clear sense of rhythm and audience feeling her previous films weren’t concerned with, and they point toward a more considered film had it not been a Happy Madison production.
The production and costume design —denim, white tops, string lights, Polaroids, black light parties— are on lock. The film has university cliché down to the point where characters can easily mention it. Each character’s costumes are always meaningful and consistent. As with Levack’s previous films, she codifies an era’s look; unlike them, the look here doesn’t feel tied to anything culturally distinct because it is set within the last 10 years. A smooth interior-to-exterior whip pan, from inside to outside the dorm as Devon catches Celeste in her bed, is one of the few stylistic camera moves these types of films don’t get. This one cool trick calls to mind the spotlight lit party scene in Mile End Kicks. But like there, that’s largely the beginning and end of it.
There are supporting elements that could have better connected the story. The parents’ casual drug use, contrasted with Devon’s restraint, hints at a generational shift shaped by cultural visibility and excessive self-monitoring. The cool supportive parents played by Nick Kroll and Natasha Lyonne help drive the story by inviting Celeste home for Thanksgiving and introduce a jealousy angle that should be played for more tension.
The ending hits the right tone for the story and resolves itself neatly, but feels tacked on without reframing what came before. It confirms what the film has already been: competent, controlled, and confined.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Will Hume
