Sadie Sandler gets a lead role in the new Netflix comedy “Roommates,” which arrives Friday and puts her at the center of the story for the first time in a streaming title built around her. She plays Devon, a college student whose friendship with her roommate Celeste has fallen apart, setting up a dorm-room clash with Chloe East in the other lead role.
The film also features Nick Kroll, Natasha Lyonne and Sarah Sherman, who is best known as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live.” For Sandler, the part marks a shift from projects where she played smaller roles alongside her father, Adam Sandler, the New Hampshire native whose streaming work has helped make the family name a familiar one on Netflix.
That matters because “Roommates” lands on Friday as part of a weekend streaming guide that is steering viewers toward new TV shows and movies across Prime Video, Peacock and HBO Max, with Netflix’s latest comedy among the titles likely to draw the most attention. The platform is counting on Sandler’s name, and the cast around her, to give the film enough lift in a crowded release window.
What makes the setup work is also what gives it some bite: Devon and Celeste are not strangers thrown together by chance, but dorm buddies whose falling out turns the movie into a roommate war rather than a simple campus comedy. Sandler has previously been in streaming hits such as “Happy Gilmore 2” and “Jay Kelly,” but those parts kept her in the background. “Roommates” gives her the lead, and that is the change audiences will notice first when the movie hits Netflix on Friday.
