Roommates continues Happy Madison's unlikely Netflix streak of teen girl comedies

While the Dean Of Student Life framing device is purposefully heighted, Sandler and East are fantastic at bringing a level of emotional realism to Devon and Celeste’s complicated bond, which is two parts Girls, one part Single White Female. For every moment Celeste crosses a boundary, there’s another moment she buoys Devon up—tweaking her makeup, helping her look cool in front of her old high school classmates, going all-out with her birthday décor. The end credits eventually roll to Charli xcx’s “Girl, So Confusing,” and that’s very much the dynamic at play within the walls of their dorm room. Does Celeste like Devon? Does she hate her? Or are they both just projecting a whole lot of personal baggage onto each other? As Charli sings, “It’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl.”

In fact, the female college experience has been severely underexplored in cinema and there’s a lot of great specificity and banter to the script by SNL writers Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O’Sullivan. Roommates understands the weird odd-couple friendships that form based on little more than who lives across the hall, the ways the dorm room experience can both magnify and elide class differences, and the codependence that often springs up as young people used to being part of a family unit are suddenly thrust into semi-adulthood together. Fowlie and O’Sullivan respect the autonomy and intelligence of 19-year-old girls while still laughing at their foibles—whether it’s the dormmate who’s perpetually on the phone with her high school boyfriend or another who brags that her entire personality can be summed up by the four posters she hangs on her wall: Clueless, The Grateful Dead, an ad for a Basquiat show, and a portrait of Karl Marx. 

For her part, director Chandler Levack uses her experience with humanist dramedies like I Like Movies and Mile End Kicks to bring out wonderfully lived-in performances from her entire ensemble. Nick Kroll is unexpectedly grounded as a loving dad who also quietly sets pretty high expectations for his daughter. Natasha Lyonne feels like a suburban mom who’s actually lived a life for once. Billy Bryk effectively toes the line between creepy and sweet as a senior who strikes up a flirtation with Devon. Most heartwarming of all is Devon’s bond with her younger brother Alex (Aidan Langford), who teases her for her non-committal way of smoking a joint and who’s probably gay (though no one in the family is rushing him into announcing that). 

All those warm relationship dynamics contribute to the way the more isolated Celeste views—and potentially tries to sabotage—Devon. Her studied nonchalance hides a whole lot of jealousy, just as Devon’s people-pleasing streak hides a whole lot of resentment. The trouble is, Roommates‘ emotional realism is so compelling that by the time it decides to swing around to being a full-on black comedy, it’s hard not to feel disappointed by the ending. To be fair, that is the setup promised by the framing device, so the film doesn’t exactly pull a fast one, and the cast is equally committed to the more heightened comedy when it arrives. It’s just that the two tones make for awkward roommates; you long to see one or the other explored in full rather than shoved together into a small space. At least it’s a very on-theme problem.

Director: Chandler Levack
Writer: Jimmy Fowlie, Ceara O’Sullivan
Starring: Sadie Sandler, Chloe East, Sarah Sherman, Nick Kroll, Natasha Lyonne, Aidan Langford, Billy Bryk, Bella Murphy, Jaya Harper, Storm Reid, Ivy Wolk, Janeane Garofalo, Carol Kane
Release Date: April 17, 2026 (Netflix)