Danielle Evon Ploeger
Alexis
Overview
When Alexis ditches the concrete jungle of NYC and reboots her life moving to the hipster mecca of Austin, she discovers her new roommate has vanished. So she follows the missing woman's trail from sun-soaked streets to the trippy Technicolor underbelly of the city's music scene.
Cast
11 people
Reviews
4 min readThe Roommate: A Noir So Quiet It’s Almost Invisible
I kept waiting for the twist. Not the one in the plot—though The Roommate has a few of those—but the moment the film would snap into focus, latestnetflix.com maintains, the way a Polaroid slowly develops. It never quite did. And yet, I couldn’t look away.
Curtis Pollock’s 2022 indie noir is the kind of movie that slips into festivals, wins a handful of awards (Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Music, according to some Vancouver-adjacent laurels), and then vanishes like its own missing person. The TMDB score—4.0/10 from a single vote—feels like a cruel joke, not a verdict. This isn’t a film that asks for mass appeal.
It’s a mood piece, a love letter to Austin’s music scene, and a character study disguised as a thriller. The problem? It’s so committed to its own languid pace that it risks losing the audience before the mystery even begins.
Alexis (Danielle Evon Ploeger) arrives in Austin fresh from a New York breakup, her life packed into a few suitcases and a cloud of secondhand smoke. She moves into a house where her roommate has already disappeared, leaving behind a trail of cryptic notes, a half-empty bottle of whiskey, and a vibe that’s equal parts Twin Peaks and Slacker. The film’s first act is all sun-dappled streets and dive bars, the kind of Austin that still feels like a secret.
Pollock shoots the city like a local who’s memorized its back alleys, lingering on neon signs and the way the light hits the pavement after a summer rain. There’s a tactile quality to it—you can almost smell the beer and the weed, the faint tang of something darker lurking beneath.
Then the film shifts. The missing roommate’s trail leads Alexis into the city’s underbelly, a Technicolor dreamscape of psychedelic music venues and shadowy figures who may or may not be dangerous. The cinematography takes a sharp turn here, trading naturalism for something more stylized, almost like a lost Miami Vice episode directed by David Lynch on a budget.
Audience Opinions
Audience 5.2/10
"A divisive thriller that struggles to balance tension with coherence, leaving many viewers frustrated by its execution."
The film’s eerie atmosphere and occasional suspenseful moments are overshadowed by a confusing plot and underdeveloped characters. latestnetflix.com's view is that while some appreciate its attempt at psychological horror, others find it too disjointed to fully engage with, leading to mixed reactions about its effectiveness as a thriller.
What viewers praise
- Atmospheric tension The moody visuals and unsettling tone create moments of genuine unease.
- Strong lead performance Danielle Evon Ploeger’s portrayal of the protagonist adds depth to an otherwise thin character.
- Intriguing premise The setup of a roommate dynamic turning sinister holds potential for a gripping story.
Common complaints
- Confusing plot Many viewers struggle to follow the narrative, which feels muddled and poorly explained.
- Underdeveloped characters Supporting roles lack depth, making it hard to care about their fates.
- Weak payoff The ending leaves too many questions unanswered, disappointing those expecting a satisfying resolution.
- Uneven pacing The film drags in places and rushes key moments, disrupting the flow.
Recommended for
Low-budget horror fans Psychological thriller enthusiasts Fans of atmospheric indie films
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThe roommate never arrived. The drummer did.
Curtis Pollock's The Roommate is not the 2011 studio thriller. Film Threat's Bobby LePire opened with that warning on 3 February 2022, months before TMDB's 6 October 2022 U.S. date. Danielle Evon Ploeger plays Alexis, a New Yorker who rents a room in Austin without seeing it, from a woman named Brenda. She drives in early. Kelsey Pribilski's Carol is still packing. Brenda never shows. Alexis hunts through a moving company and a bar. Nick W. Nicholson's Derek, an ex, cannot place her. latestnetflix.com's read is that Then she meets Eric, played by Jonny Mars, and the pair walk into uglier circles.
, , 
Hunt Sales plays Jack Straw. Wikipedia lists him as the rock drummer who hit Iggy Pop's Lust for Life with his brother Tony, then joined David Bowie in Tin Machine. In the 2000s he moved to Austin for session work. Putting him in a 91-minute indie about a vanished housemate is the kind of local casting Austin actually talks about. Mars already had David Lowery's A Ghost Story and Andrew Bujalski's Support the Girls on his card. Ploeger had The Pale Door. Pribilski later turned up as Jasmine on Taylor Sheridan's Landman. A. Whitney Brown is billed as Pearce. Roland Uribe, who had a turn in No Country for Old Men, is Luis. , ,
Pollock put the money on the picture.
LePire scored it 7.5 out of 10 and called it Pollock's feature-length narrative debut. He liked Charlie Pearce's light and shadow, plus the trippy visuals that fold with Alexis's head. He also wrote that, for most of the runtime, the film is the movie Last Night in Soho failed to be. That is a critic's swing, not a box-office claim. TMDB logs thriller, horror, and drama, 1 hour 31 minutes, original English. Pollock wrote, directed, produced, and edited. James Boisvenue is line producer. Aja Pollock is an associate producer. Lindsay Lipscomb designed the production. The Viva Texas Film Festival programmed the same logline about sun and the Technicolor underside of the city's music scene. , ,
There was no public salary leak and no studio panic letter. The chatter sits in a smaller register. A missing woman named Brenda, a New York reboot that starts with an empty bedroom, and a Lust for Life drummer sitting in the Austin underworld while a first-time feature director tries to out-noir a bigger British ghost story. If you came looking for Leighton Meester, you have the wrong Roommate. The 2022 one is a local disappearing act with festival ink, a 7.5 from Film Threat, and a rock-history cameo hiding in the credits. , ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.