ROOMMATE – 2020 – Thailand

BLISS RATING: ★★★★ 

“Good roommates are hard to find, harder to leave, impossible to forget.” – Unknown

This is a bit of a messy series and reminds me of a ‘throw away’ series. It kind of went nowhere, although it seemed like it wanted to go somewhere. Simply, it is a story about 2 roommates in college. A very relatable story for sure and it had such good potential, but the production seemed to not want to trust its two main characters. Solution: throw in a few silly scenes and female characters that added nothing to the story or its theme and were completely superfluous and distracting.

It is a story about Sky (Golf Trithep) and James (Game Chusak). Sky moves into James’ room and starts to develop more than a platonic friendship. James also begins to form feelings for Sky and a spark of affection blossoms. Some of their scenes with each other are endearing and show some real connection.

In the end, it does seem to develop into a slightly more intense relationship. But it never quite gets to the point that you ‘feel’ anything for them. There is no angst in this series and therefore it is hard to feel comfortable with the characters’ developments. It is certainly an enjoyable short series of five episodes. Honestly, I cannot say anything negative about the acting; it is not their fault. I just felt that the screenplay and direction never allowed them to grow and seemed to not trust their acting chops to pull it off. Too bad. It felt like it was a gross underestimation of the main performers abilities to act. 

Who really S.T.O.L.E. the series? There was not a lot here for them to hone on to their acting skills, but I think Golf as Sky was a bit more convincing in his feelings. You could see the anxiousness on his face when he tries to move into the room and is obviously not accepted. His whole persona tenses and he tries very hard to blend in. Eventually, he does and you can see him become more relaxed and at ease and in a sense begin to control the situation rather than be controlled. He was a good character study. 

An odd series.