The Roommate

A short story by John Updike serves as the basis for this 1985 film, originally made for the PBS American Playhouse series, about a rigid, straight-arrow freshman at Northwestern University who becomes a looser, more tolerant person as a result of living with a totally dissimilar classmate. Orson Ziegler (Lance Guest) is a highly disciplined and religious fellow, a high school valedictorian and basketball star from a small South Dakota town who arrives on campus in 1952 intent on finishing the pre-med program as expeditiously as possible and following in his father's footsteps as his hometown's doctor. But his self-assurance is tested when he's assigned a room with Henry Palomountain (Barry Miller), a vegetarian student of Zen philosophy who prefers yoga and cloth-spinning to studying but proves a surprising social success despite what Orson considers his irritating oddity. The Roommate fits a bit too comfortably within the tradition of college coming-of-age tales with morals attached, and the dormitory banter can seem rather forced, but solid performances from both the leads and the supporting cast (including the young John Cameron Mitchell as an obsessive child prodigy), along with the straightforward, unobtrusive direction by Nell Cox, carry it over the rough patches. Also newly available in the American Playhouse series at the same price, Eleanor: In Her Own Words (with Lee Remick) and Life Under Water (with Sarah Jessica Parker and Keanu Reeves). Recommended. (F. Swietek)