Aahana Swrup
Directed by Chandler Levack, ‘Roommates’ is a teen comedy film where a seemingly idyllic friendship between two college roommates takes a chaotic turn. After high school, Devon is eager to start a whole new life as a student at Walton University. Therefore, she’s thrilled when she and her roommate, Celeste, hit it off at the start of the semester. However, when you’re forced to share a room, a friend group, and subsequently a life with another person, things are bound to go wrong. When that someone seems to be a master at passive aggression who keeps her card close to herself, things promise to take an even worse turn. From a lack of personal boundaries to unwise life choices, Celeste’s burgeoning presence in Devon’s life soon begins to drive her insane. Thus, as their easy compatibility begins to come to an end, it’s only a matter of time before things get blown way out of proportion. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Roommates Plot Synopsis
The story begins with a separate set of roommates, Luna and Auguste, who have been facing intense problems barely a month into the semester. As things escalate to belongings being thrown out of windows, the Dean, Dr. Schilling, has no choice but to step in. However, instead of fulfilling their requests for changing roommates, she decides to tell them a story about another pair of dysfunctional roommates who walked the school halls before them: Devon and Celeste. The former has always been an unpopular kid who never got the art of making friends down. Nonetheless, as she sets off to college orientation, her family assures her that things are bound to change. To her surprise, their prediction comes to fruition when she runs into Celeste, a cool and charming 20-year-old student.
Over the course of the next few days, the two girls become best friends and decide to room together in college. Initially, when the semester begins and the duo settles into their dorm room, things seem to be smooth-sailing. They get invited to parties, make spring break plans, and Devon even meets a cute senior, Michael, who happens to be a TA in one of her classes. The first hurdle arrives when Celeste falls sick and struggles to finish her history paper. As a sign of friendship, her roommate agrees to stay back at the library and do the work for her. However, when she comes back to her dorm room, it’s to find Celeste, no longer sick, but having sex with another student. Worse yet, she seems to have joined their two beds, effectively ruining the other’s sheets as well.
Even so, when Devon tries to complain about the same to her parents, they only end up convincing her to bring her roommate home for Thanksgiving so that she won’t have to spend the holiday alone. Initially, things revert to normal between the two roommates. This is only short-lived as her roommate’s popularity with her family begins to bother Devon. Yet, she’s forced to re-evaluate her opinions when Celeste leaves early and sets up a birthday surprise for her roommate in their dorm for when she returns. This only lasts briefly because the birthday student discovers the other has accidentally posted a photo with her roommate’s meds in the background. When Devon tries to take the matter to Schilling to initiate a roommate swap, she’s told to establish her boundaries before deciding on any last resort situation.
In the following weeks, Devon’s bubbling resentment toward Celeste continues to grow. She begins to suspect the other girl of constantly trying to sabotage her in a variety of ways. Even so, her passive-aggressive ways always leave space for plausible deniability, leaving Devon with no concrete proof. Eventually, things blow over at spring break, a vacation that the latter had funded and her roommate still hadn’t paid her back for. At a party, someone, likely Celeste, signs the architecture student up for karaoke, most probably expecting her to humiliate herself. Nonetheless, after overcoming the initial awkwardness, Devon puts on a great performance. Still, her joy is short-lived, destroyed by the sigh of her supposed best friend kissing the boy she has steadily been falling for all this time: Michael.
Roommates Ending: Do Devon and Celeste Reconcile? What Happens to Them?
The spring break becomes the last straw for Devon. Over the course of the story, she puts up with a lot of her roommate’s indiscretions, either choosing to give her the benefit of the doubt or simply wanting to avoid awkward confrontation. When she initially cuts the vacation short and flies back to the college alone and depressed, it seems like she may be pulling the same cards again. However, this time around, an old best friend, her brother Alex, shows up in the right place at the right time. After all this time, he knows his sister well enough to know when something is wrong and has come to be a comforting shoulder. As the siblings spend their time bonding, Devon decides that she won’t let Celeste get away with her mean-spirited actions this time. Thus, the duo begins scheming a grand plot of vengeance.
As the semester starts up again, just in time for the Walton Con, Devon’s plan takes hold. During her presentation at the esteemed program, she decides to put Celeste on blast, airing out all their dirty laundry in front of the whole school. She humiliates the other girl by declaring her the worst roommate ever and sharing her every offense with their fellow students. By the end of the day, when she returns to her dorm, Celeste has already cleared her stuff out. Yet, the latter doesn’t take the loss lying down. Instead, she decides to target her ex-roommate’s family. Earlier, when Celeste had gotten close to Alex, he had come out to her and even told her about the crush he had on his friend, Peter.
The morning after, Devon wakes to a phone call from her distressed brother, who had been outed at his school via some mysterious banners. Afterward, the architecture student finds her ex-friend in Schillings dorm room, where she seems to have moved in temporarily. The confrontation that follows is explosive, both figuratively and literally. After several verbal insults are thrown, Devon uses Schillings welding tools to set fire to Celeste’s belongings. Thus, as the entire dorm building burns it down, it marks the similarly vicious end of Devon and Celeste’s friendship. In the end, both suffer from the chaotic fallout, with Devon ending up in jail for starting the fire and Celeste getting cut off by her father.
However, Devon still manages to find some silver lining when she meets her prison roommate, Louis. As it turns out, her past with Celeste has taught the convicted arsonist a thing or two about setting down boundaries and protecting herself from being taken advantage of. Furthermore, unlike the college student, Louis turns out to actually be nice. Although their meeting is unorthodox, as it happens in a prison, Devon ends up finding a true friend in Louis. Eventually, as the two are released early from their sentences for good behavior, they go on to launch a successful architecture and interior design firm. As it turns out, reconciliation was never in the cards for Celeste and Devon, and the latter finds herself to be much better off once she cuts out the other’s toxicity from her life.
Why Was Celeste Messing With Devon?
At first, Celeste’s actions against Devon, even the more egregious ones, can be explained away with an excuse or two. Her lack of boundaries seems solvable with just an awkward, but necessary, conversation between the two roommates. Likewise, the pills and the stolen underwear both seem like plausible mistakes. Nonetheless, spring break changes all of that. Worse yet, in the aftermath of the betrayal, Devon makes some damning discoveries about the other girl. Throughout the story, Celeste plays the part of a small-town girl from humble beginnings and a complicated family. She’s constantly short on money and consistently on the phone with her therapist discussing family problems. However, all of this turns out to be a lie.
Apparently, Celeste is actually the daughter of a wealthy man who also happens to be the CEO of Staples, the official supply company. As such, it comes out in the open that she has been lying to Devon and the whole university this entire time. The problems that she does have turn out to be of an entirely different variety. As it turns out, Celeste’s relationships with her parents are incredibly complicated. Her mother has Alzheimer’s, which probably translates into a taut mother-daughter dynamic. On the other hand, her father, who divorced her mother shortly after the medical diagnosis, has a second wife who is only two years older than her. As such, she has no real parental or authority figure in her life who can be her guiding light. For the same reason, Celeste lies about her background to achieve some semblance of distance from her reality.
Similarly, her dysfunctional familial relationships compel her to despise Devon, who has near-perfect parents and an incredible brother. Consequently, Celeste begins to hate the other girl for having everything that she herself lacks in life. However, the irony remains that if she had simply chosen to confide in Devon and treat her like an actual friend, she could have found the human connection that she has clearly been craving her entire life. Ultimately, the situation at Walton only serves to worsen her relationship with her father. She’s initially transferred to another university, a pattern that her father follows instead of doling out any real parenting, before she’s ultimately cut off from finances. The final blow comes when, in the absence of any other opportunities, she’s forced to work as a retail employee at Staples, the same company her father owns.
What Happens to Michael? Does He End Up With Devon or Celeste?
At first, Michael’s character seems like the standard love interest, who promises to add some romance to Devon’s college life. He’s a senior who hides away in the kitchen doing culinary experiments during frat parties and can never stop talking about the vacations he took last summer. From the minute Devon crosses paths with him, sparks immediately start flying. Later, she realizes that he’s a TA in her architecture classes, opening up more opportunities for them to continue crossing paths. Eventually, a defining moment comes for them at a Halloween party, when Devon finally makes a move.
Even though their time together is cut short by unexpected emergencies, it’s clear that her feelings are reciprocated. For the same reason, it comes as such a big betrayal when, on spring break, Michael has no qualms about making out with her friend, Celeste. The latter is only using the TA as a means to an end in her ever-evolving crusade against her roommate. However, the moment ends up opening Devon’s eyes to Miachel’s various red flags. In the aftermath, the fact that he sought her out by getting her number from the TA contact list goes from charming to a red flag. Thus, Michael is left to the curb as a result of his own actions. After college, he tries to open a Mexican restaurant, which remains unsuccessful. Finally, he also goes bald at the age of 25, seemingly as some cosmic commupence.
Read More: Where Was Netflix’s Roommates Filmed?
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