Over the years, thanks to films like “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” and “The House Bunny,” Happy Madison Productions became famous for making airy, disposable chuckle-fests about immature people doing immature things, with a little bit of heart. But there’s a darker side to Happy Madison films.
As much as fans of “That’s My Boy” or “Grown Ups 2” may enjoy them on a superficial, unironic level, to a lot of us they’re pretty damn gross. Not in the harmless, “Oops, I farted,” way, but in the harmful, “I’m pretty sure these people are just making light of horrifying abuse,” kind of way.
So for every “Hubie Halloween” or “Blended” which actually is good-natured, there’s also a “The Do-Over” or a “Jack and Jill,” which treat human suffering like a big joke. And while human suffering is fair game for comedies, it’s rare to find a Happy Madison film that acknowledges their inherent darkness and reckons with the fact that some of its characters aren’t misunderstood goofballs, they’re just monsters. That’s what makes some of these movies hard to appreciate. Films like “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” feel like they’re made by people who know what it’s like to be bullied. Films like “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2” feel like they’re made by and for bullies.
Chandler Levack’s “Roommates” isn’t one of those offenders, although it sure looks like one. On the surface it’s a bog standard buddy comedy about two college roommates, Devon (Sadie Sandler) and Celeste (Chloe East). Devon is an uptight wallflower who never had a best friend before. Celeste is a party girl who makes a mess and screws around.
Devon and Celeste start out as besties, but cracks start to show over the course of the school year. Devon feels like Celeste, who came from a poorer family, is taking advantage of her financial generosity. She also starts doing Celeste’s homework, as though that’s a normal thing friends do. But she’s offering to do these things, and Celeste has her back in social situations. Celeste even saves Devon’s grandma when a turkey explodes and she’s set on fire, which is a thing that happens in Happy Madison movies. (I’d feel safer at Camp Crystal Lake than any of these people’s houses.)
The vital thing is, there’s always a lot of plausible deniability. “Roommates” has a little in common with a David Mamet movie, in that everything everyone says is suspect. The twist could be that Celeste was awesome this whole time and Devon was the real monster. Or that everything would have worked out fine with a little more direct communication. I won’t ruin exactly what happens. Let’s just say the somewhat-subversive script by Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O’Sullivan could have been a horror movie with just a few alterations.
“Roommates” isn’t particularly funny, even as these Netflix comedies go, but Sandler and East are strong leads and they give the characters some depth. So even if you’re not actually laughing you care enough to get to the end. Sarah Sherman narrates the movie as the Dean of Student Life, telling a cautionary tale to two other warring roommates. At one point she says, “And that my friends is the power of good storytelling,” which is a bit of an exaggeration but hey, point taken.
It’s unfortunate that Sherman’s distinct brand of comic genius is not on display, but her part doesn’t seem to have been written for her. She’s playing a character any comic performer could have played if they had a few days free in their schedule, but she does a good job with it. (Now somebody give Sarah Sherman a blank check and director’s cut, just to see what would happen.)
It would be a stretch to say “Roommates” entirely works but it’s a lot more interesting than most Happy Madison movies, especially when the end rolls along and the movie reveals how many of these people were the problem all along, or became the problem along the way. Questioning the moral fortitude of these comedies used to be something only critics did, and Happy Madison fans usually hated us for it.
Now “Roommates” is getting in on the act and I respect the film’s sense of introspection. I just wish it had funnier jokes.
