Review | “Shithouse” reminds audiences what college is really like

Cooper Raiff nailed his directorial debut at just 22-years-old with “Shithouse,” a film about a college freshman who falls for his resident advisor. Unsplash

Cooper Raiff’s newly released film “Shithouse” hit me like a ton of bricks. Rarely is a movie this deeply honest, relatable and filled with moments that make the world of the movie feel so uniquely real. 

“Shithouse” is about a homesick college freshman named Alex (played by Raiff himself), following his experience at a party at an upperclassman’s house – nicknamed “Shithouse” – as he spends the night falling for his resident advisor Maggie (Dylan Gelula). 

Raiff, 23, spent the spring break of his sophomore year of college writing and shooting a short film version of “Shithouse,” before tweeting the link to it to one of his heroes, director Jay Duplass. As a mentor to Raiff, Duplass helped Raiff build the film into a feature for his directorial debut.  After being shot at Occidental College in fall 2019, the film was accepted into the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference and won the Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature months later. 

Part of the joy of growing older is that you and your age demographic start to realize you can have a true impact on society and culture. There’s been a steep increase in Generation Z movie stars and musicians of late, which to a younger generation makes the art feel eminently more relatable. Screenwriting and directing films are careers that often have an older demographic, so a great delight of “Shithouse” is the potential for more movies like it.

Yet “Shithouse” stands apart for so many more reasons. The movie is incredibly realistic and painfully relatable, as it made me miss both the enjoyable and unpleasant parts of attending college in person. “Shithouse” doesn’t try to glamorize the college experience; the parties the characters go to are sweaty and unromantic. Lazy days are spent smoking weed and bonding with your roommate. 

Some moments truly stood out as genuine college experiences that aren’t often represented in film, like flirting with a girl in the bathroom line at a party and getting interrupted by a friend wearing a bucket hat.  At one point, Alex and his roommate Sam (Logan Miller) have to fabricate a fictitious fraternity brother they “know” to gain admission to a fraternity party – a tactic I am well-versed in, as referencing “Matt” helped me get into quite a few fraternities my sophomore year. 

“Shithouse” has great dialogue, filled with downbeat moments of dialogue that feel like they were written by Noah Baumbach or Greta Gerwig. As they walk around campus together, Maggie asks Alex, “Do you believe in God?” He responds, “On airplanes, I do.” 

In the aforementioned bathroom line at the party, they discuss how it’s nice to carry around a bottle of wine at a party, so you have something heavy to occupy your hands when you talk. That’s something I’ve thought of before, and little moments like these make “Shithouse” feel vulnerable and honest. 

Relatability is the feeling of being seen without actually having to put yourself out there. When you see a movie, read a book or even listen to a song that articulates a thought you've had before, there’s a joyous moment of, “Oh, I’m not alone – you feel this way too.” 

“Shithouse” is the movie I needed when I was a lonely freshman and wanted to go home.