‘Roommates’ Review: Chandler Levack Continues to Reawaken Coming-of-Age Cinema
While more commercial than Mile End Kicks, Chandler Levack’s humanist touch seeps through every aspect of her funny and achingly moving Roommates, anchored by two brilliant performances from Sadie Sandler and Chloe East.
If you liked Mile End Kicks and wanted to see more of Chandler Levack’s cinema, you’re in luck! The Toronto-based filmmaker has accomplished a rare feat in moviemaking, releasing her two latest movies on the same day! Mile End Kicks is the theatrical event (especially for Montrealers), while her second movie, Roommates, could act as a direct-to-streaming palate cleanser. This is why Prime Minister Mark Carney should be compelled to dub April 17th, 2026, as Chandler Levack Day, and perhaps make it a national holiday, for posterity’s sake, to celebrate one of the strongest voices in Canadian cinema today.
Both films show how versatile a talent she is, and how her Torontonian sensibilities lend themselves (very) well to a Hollywood comedy distributed by Netflix and Happy Madison Productions. It might sometimes veer into the awkward verbal humor found in many films produced by Adam Sandler’s own company, but its heart is always in the right place, offering a frequently funny and surprisingly moving coming-of-age tale that solidifies Levack as a filmmaker to watch and marks the next stage of her career.
Roommates might be more streamlined than Mile End Kicks, which sadly fizzles out in a never-ending final half-hour that wraps the story up at least a hundred times. However, in this direct-to-streaming effort, Levack’s voice is still present from beginning to end. Employing a classic framing device of Walton College Dean Dr. Robyn Schilling (Sarah Sherman) telling a cautionary tale to two roommates, Luna (Storm Reid) and Auguste (Ivy Wolk), the I Like Movies director has fun staging the archetypal falling out of a friendship that might have benefited from turning into a full-on horror movie.
The friendship between Devon Weisz (Sadie Sandler) and Celeste Durand (Chloe East) started out promising. The two knew no one when they entered university, but they immediately clicked during orientation. Now best friends, Devon and Chloe decide to be roommates at college, which proves to be more complicated than both had anticipated. The story goes in a thousand different directions, but Dr. Schilling utilizes it as a lesson for both Luna and Auguste to put their “roommate rivalry” aside before the college faces yet more destruction.
Just like Mile End Kicks was Avengers: Endgame for Montrealers, Roommates has an amazing Toronto easter egg that probably made the sole theatrical screening of the city erupt in thunderous applause. In fact, this easter egg moves the plot forward and appears several times during the movie. Hell, it might be Levack’s funniest joke, because only a specific group of people (Torontonians or anyone who attended TIFF) will get it. Everyone else will be completely impervious to such a moment.
Humor like this gives Levack’s filmmaking an immersive quality that few comedy directors possess. Every aspect of her coming-of-age story, from the room (a character in its own right) to the bevy of colorful side characters played by burgeoning and veteran character actors (some are, of course, Happy Madison alums), feels textured and lived-in. Even the story being narrated by way of Sarah Squirm has intent, with Reid and Wolk evolving their rivalry to a natural, and earned, conclusion. That quality is so important if the audience is to buy into a friendship that turns sour, making the performances more natural (and relatable).
In that regard, both Sandler and East deliver impactful turns layered with vivid emotion. They make these typical characters unique, and likely add so much more than what’s present on the page. We immediately believe in their friendship and their eventual falling out. Each relationship, whether in the film's core or with its supporting cast, has something to offer. Natasha Lyonne and Nick Kroll are both hilarious as Devon’s parents, while Carol Kane has a memorable bit part as her grandmother, with a (all-too) relatable physical joke involving a frozen turkey and a deep fire. Chaos ensues, but Levack thrives in it and has done so throughout her filmography.
It’s a shame, though, that the film’s denouement, which releases all of the built-up tension between the two, feels a bit silly and far too outlandish than how the film’s first two halves set it up as a rather down-to-earth picture. Without spoiling anything, it genuinely looks like it belongs in a completely different movie than the one we thought we were watching. Jumping the shark made the emotional connection we formed with both Devon and Celeste far less impactful than a less theatrical conclusion would have. It renders moot some of the progress the characters make in the story because Levack and screenwriters Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O’Sullivan never make both Devon and Celeste aware of the consequences of their actions.
That said, it does lead to some exciting (and downright unexpected) cameos that got a definite laugh out of me. That alone signals great things coming from Chandler Levack, who, after her feature directorial debut, immediately positioned herself as a burgeoning talent within Canada. With Roommates and the confidence Adam Sandler has in the movie, it’s clear that Levack’s career within Hollywood has just begun, but she will always have a special place in her heart for the city that made her fall in love with movies.