“I really loved that it was this super funny, honest investigation of first year of college, [when] there aren’t a lot of coming-of-age movies about your first year of college,” director Chandler Levack tells Teen Vogue. “It really is a super bizarre time in your life where you’re leaving your family for the very first time, you’re trying to define yourself outside of everyone you’ve ever known and reinvent yourself, but you’re also terrified and socially awkward and thrust into adulthood.”
In the film, Devon is a bit naive, while Celeste is the more worldly cool girl. “Devon is going into her freshman year of college having never really had a friend,” Sadie Sandler tells Teen Vogue over email. “She’s socially awkward and just trying to find her place—her goal is to finally find her group.” East adds, “They meet freshman year thinking they’re going to be besties—like they’re going to totally understand each other—and then you start to see little cracks in the wall.”
(L to R) Sadie Sandler as Devon and Billy Bryk as Michael.Courtesy of Netflix
(L to R) Nick Kroll as Brian, Natasha Lyonne as Hannah, Aidan Langford as Alex and Sadie Sandler as Devon on the set of Roommates.Scott Yamano/Netflix
Fittingly, Sandler was experiencing some of the movie’s plot in real time; Levack reveals Sandler was finishing her freshman year at New York University—with a roommate—when they began pre-production. She’s learned firsthand how complicated that kind of relationship can be. “In college, everyone’s trying to figure themselves out,” Sandler says. “If you don’t even know who you are yet, how can you have a stable relationship?”
Ultimately, having a roommate, especially one who shares an actual room, is one of the most intimate experiences you can have with another person. You get their daily habits, you change clothes next to each other, you see who they are when no one’s watching.