Roman
Roman
| 07 July 2006 (USA)
Roman Trailers

Roman (Lucky McKee) is a lonely young man who yearns to find love, happiness and companionship. Tormented by his ungrateful co-workers and trapped in a life of tedium as a welder in a local factory, Roman's one pleasure is his obsession with the elusive beauty (Kristen Bell) who lives in another apartment in his building complex. When a chance encounter with the young woman goes horribly wrong, a moment of frenzied desperation triggers a chilling turn of events leading to the girl's murder. As he teeters between deranged fantasy and cold reality, Roman's struggle to hide his grisly secret is further complicated by an eccentric neighbor named Eva (Nectar Rose) who develops an unlikely attraction to Roman and forces herself into his dark and tortured world.

Reviews
HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.
FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.
Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
TdSmth5 I'm not familiar with other work by this crew so I'm just going to review this movie by itself. The first couple of minutes I was sure this would be one of those movies that I would have to fast-forward most of it, but to my surprise I ended up enjoy it. Roman is a lonely anti-social welder who lives a painfully routine life, until he meets a girl who lives in his apartment complex. The girl is adorable and full of life. But Roman is tortured by fantasies and voices in his head. He ends up killing her but because he loves her he keeps the frozen body in his house. Little by little he cuts pieces of her and throws them in a lake.He meets another girl who is even more lovely than the first and who actually develops a crush for him. She is the artsy type, a little odd, and has a fascination with death. She is working on some art project that she won't reveal until the surprising end.This is a very low budget movie that makes up for that with a ton of personality. The performances are very good but most importantly the characters are outstanding. Roman is the guy no one is interested in meeting, but if you go through the trouble of meeting him, he's actually alright. The girls are pretty much a guy's fantasy. And Nectar Rose steals basically the show. The script is funny, tender, smart. The problem is that there isn't enough story for a 1:30 minutes film. The camera lingers too long on shots; shots in the dark-and there are lots of them-look pretty terrible. You can tell that the ending isn't going to be nice but it does come as a surprise. It's a shame this movie wasn't made with a higher budget. This is one of the few movies that deserves a remake.
Jonny_Numb Jeez...apparently, Lucky McKee can do no wrong. Like an album by an indie artist buried under a pile of Top 40 junk, it is often hard to remember that the horror genre DOES have an existence outside of Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, and the "Saw" franchise. But is "Roman" really a horror film? McKee himself has found the tag questionable, as his films are more about relationships than anything else. "Roman," directed by actress Angela Bettis, is a gender reversal on McKee's breakout debut, "May" (in which Bettis starred), but blossoms into yet another singularly unique entity. Roman (McKee, who also scripted) is a remote, shy welder who leads a lonely existence; his daily excitement comes from sitting in front of his apartment window as an anonymous, beautiful girl (Kristen Bell) walks by; when the duo finally hook up, it meets an unexpected end. While McKee's hangdog expression can be overdone at times, he nails the nuances of a tormented, lovelorn guy, which becomes even more complex when Eva (the beautiful Nectar Rose), a foliage-wearing artist, enters his life. The beauty of watching "Roman" unravel is this awareness of relationship mechanics--seldom does character motivation feel contrived, nor does it come off with a sanitized "Hollywood" feel (the use of DV further helps this). As with "May," McKee finds ways to make potential shock-value scenes play with a tenderness (or humor) that is even more effective. And maybe as a titular nod to Polanski, the film bears a similarity to that director's tales of paranoid and/or sexually confused apartment-dwellers trying to sustain a day-to-day existence without (literally) killing someone. "Roman" is a wonderful film, sure to be on my "Best of 2007" list (even though it came out last year).
Jody V I watched and watched and kept thinking 'i'll give it ten more minutes'. The film is obviously low budget, (maybe more financial interest may have hurried it along a bit). The lead actor is great, he plays the role great, definitely the type of guy you'd avoid. However,he sits in his apartment, and he sits, and he sits, and he sits, and he goes to work, and then home, and then work and then home....get the point. There are people out there like that, and the story line is menacing, but for heavens sake... hurry it along a bit. Surely in the pre-release stage, someone must have started fidgeting in the first ten minutes and said to the producer, 'shall we go back and tweak it to make it more interesting?' I can only assume that the response was...'too late the money's ran out' Enough said, go shopping instead!
reeves2002 First off I want to say I can't believe all the people criticizing this movie for the bad picture quality and type of camera used.I think it helped to give it more realism and it may have been done for a reason.Or it could be because it's a low budget film and they had no choice.It kind of came off as an experimental or student film.The only thing I didn't like was an annoying noise during the the live sound not being edited out. The noise in the background sounded like a cat meowing throughout a lot of the movie.It was distracting and even one of my cats got up and kept looking around the room. Lucky McKee who wrote and starred in this film did a nice convincing performance of a lonely, isolated and disturbed man.There was a scene while he was being ridiculed at work and the topic of masturbation came up and I burst out in laughter.I found the scenes with Roman and his co-workers on their lunch break extremely comical and well portrayed,I mean that kind of sh*t happens! Roman has his dull daily routine and seems to lead a meaningless life.He eats nothing but pork and beans and sits by his window looking out it drinking beer. It would have been nice to understand how he loses his grip of reality.It would be nice to see the events that led up to it, but everyone involved in this project was having too much fun making it and not caring what direction it took.I like these kinds of weird,twisted films now and then.I liked Isis(the girl) played by Kristen Bell.She was so friendly, naive and sweet but Unfortunately her encounter with Roman ended tragically. And then there is Eva(played by Nectar Rose).At first I thought Eva was the sister of Isis out to avenge her sister's death because the cop that visited the building mentioned the missing girl's sister was looking for her.And also she was also trying to get inside an apartment by involving Roman going to the landlord.But then by the end of the movie I wasn't sure if she even existed at all and thought she was Roman's imaginary girlfriend.I didn't understand the ending and found parts of the movie confusing.Roman became a bigger nut case and found Eva's death amusing. I can see how some people may find this movie confusing, dull,morbid, or boring and strange.You have to like black comedies,off-beat thriller's,or appreciate different type of films.I liked some of the deleted scenes especially the alternative Roman dream sequence and think it should have been in the film.It was a very entertaining sequence and i'm not sure why it wasn't used.Whether or not the people involved with making this movie took it seriously or not,I still enjoyed it.It started off slow but kept my interest.