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T<\/span>he initial fruits borne from Adam Sandler\u2019s early days deal with Netflix<\/a> were largely rotten; empty-brained and dated comedies like The Ridiculous 6, The Do-Over and Sandy Wexler. But as Sandler matured, so did his decision-making and outside of his increasing attempts to work in smarter, more textured dramatic fare, his production company Happy Madison has found success by going sweet without risking a sugar crash.<\/p>\n His animated adventure Leo<\/a> had real warmth and insight to it while his performance in the charmingly trad basketball drama Hustle was strong enough for many to see his lack of Oscar nomination as a cruel snub. But it was 2023\u2019s coming-of-age comedy You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah<\/a> that showed where his company\u2019s most fertile future might lie, as shepherd to a younger generation of film-makers who want to tell stories about teens that don\u2019t patronise or undervalue. Filling the film with roles for his family \u2013 wife and two daughters all in \u2013 might have seemed like one of the more obviously bleak signs of how nepotism has corroded Hollywood but, against all odds, it worked and he\u2019s found another role for eldest Sadie in another winner, the bizarrely buried college comedy Roommates.<\/p>\n Keeping a film from critics has become a telling go-to strategy for studios keenly aware of quality concerns (over the years, movies I\u2019ve had to wait and review post-release include inert AI horror AfrAId<\/a>, dumped Christmas comedy Dear Santa<\/a> and limp action thriller Anna<\/a>) but the choice to hide Roommates is unusually baffling, an undeniably imperfect film yes, but one with enough going for it that I could imagine some early champions. The bar for comedies, teen comedies, streaming comedies and, christ, streaming movies at large<\/em> is as low as it can possibly go at this oversaturated yet underdeveloped moment which makes Roommates a film to shout about rather than quietly bury.<\/p>\n