As human beings continue blurring those already faded lines that separate technology from companionship, it seems we’re destined to continue to explore the cinematic, Frankenstein-esque ramifications of resorting to science to cure all of our social ills. These days, it seems that the less capable a person is able to estabish a genuine connection with another human being without being able to put all their personal hang-ups and bullshit in perspective, the more likely they are to resort to other means that seemingly only enhances the toxicity that made them so awkward in the first place. The latest crack at this phenomenon is Drew Hancock’s Companion which comes with a certain weight of expectation thanks to it being backed up by the production team that gave us Barbarian that gives us another story that gleefully aims to subvert expectations and do for relationships what M3GAN did for robotic childcare. Butvcan a film that’s essentially The Stepford Wives for the Siri generation actually have anything new to say?
A quick P.S.: maybe skip the synopsis if you want to be surprised.
Meet Josh and Iris; a devoted couple if ever you met one. But while he’s all charming smiles and charismatic chat, there’s a sense that she’s the one who is really invested in this relationship as she works tirelessly to keep him happy. In fact, as they head towards an extremely remote house in the country to spend the weekend with friends, Iris gets increasingly agitated, seemingly concerned that she’ll do something to embarrass Josh in front of his friends, however, he consoles her with the rather mixed message that if she just smiles and looks happy everything will be fine.
After meeting up with Josh friend Kat; her wealthy older Russian boyfriend and owner of the house, Sergey and similarly loved up couple Eli and Patrick, the weekend seems to be going rather nicely, however, there’s an obvious that something amiss as both Kat, Sergey and Josh all seem to be talking to and about Iris using weird terminology and suspicious double meanings and it all comes to a head the next morning. While Iris heads down to the lake to enjoy the morning air, an alarming string of events occur in her stabbing someone who tries to force themselves upon her and once she returns to the house absolutely drenched in crimson gore, all Hell suddenly breaks loose that shakes her perception of reality right down to its core.
You see, Iris is a highly advanced companionship robot that Josh purchased from the good people at Empathics Robotics and there is no way she should have been able to defend herself from her attacker the way she did. In fact, the only way that could have happened is if someone had modded her programming which could – and does – end up with disastrous results.
It turns out that Iris is every inch the model girlfriend, but exactly how devoted is Josh?
Yep, once again this is one of those reviews where I have to tread carefully in case I spoil too much because beyond a vague run down of its first twenty minutes or so, Companion is a film that’s much better the less you know about it. In fact, the fact that the advertising campaign already sort of gave away the whole love-bot thing (which is the only reason I gave it away) is a tremendous shame because the story is one of those cases where literally everything you think you know has a massive hole poked in it sooner or later or later which succeeds in keeping you utterly off balance for most of the running time. In fact, even the fact that the film is being somewhat marketed as a horror flick kind of does it a slight disservice as it’s more a pitch black relationship comedy (a very anti-romcom if you will) with sci-fi undertones that get evermore unhinged as the already messed up circumstances spiral hopelessly out of control.
It’s yet another violent, “good for her”, social commentary that gleefully targets toxic tech bros and controlling males that strikes the same brutal tone as Zöe Kravitz’s Blink Twice and leaves no artery or ego unpunctured, but while comparisons to that, the aforementioned The Stepford Wives and even M3GAN (without the Tiktok dancing) are all valid, there’s also shades of Halina Rejin’s pseudo-slasher flick Bodies Bodies Bodies here too as we have a bunch of entitled, selfish asshats finding that their greed and egos have led them into a rapidly deteriorating scenario that gets all the more funnily the more stressful it gets.
Leading the charge is Sophie Thatcher who we last saw debating religion to the death with another controlling male in Heretic and she mansges to balance the conflicting nature of a synthetic being experiencing the injustices of a controlling relationship (she literally is treated as property because technically she actually is) as events beyond her control lead to her settings being raised and lowered.
In fact, her performance helps both nail the simultaneous humour and tension of the situations she’s put in, be it her setting her language default to German in order to disguise to a police officer that she utter unable to lie or trying to alter the pitch and timbre of her voice to fool a voice activated car to start. Opposite her is Jack Quaid who really does seem to be going above and beyond the call of duty on order to complete his quest in becoming cinema’s shittiest boyfriend. Using that patented Quaid grin to be remarkably punchable from the off, his desperate and misguided attempts to stay in control and keep things on track no matter how many lives he fucks up is simultaneously rage inducing and amusingly pathetic as he once again weaponizes that goofy charm for evil much like he did in Scream. In fact, by the time the year is out, Beep Boop may be the innocuously insidious nickname used in 2025.
Offering appropriately witty back up is the always welcome presence of What We Do In The Shadow’s Harvey Guillén, Smile 2’s Lukas Gage and even a bizarrely unrecognisable Rupert Friend as the plot gets ever further out of control.
But just what is that plot? Well, I’ll leave you to discover that for yourselves, but rest assured it gets very desperate, very bloody and – possibly most importantly – very funny, but while it may feel more than a little familiar at times thanks to a multitude of recent flicks hovering around the same notions of women being callously controlled or manipulated (I Spit On Your Grave meets Ex Machina is yet another mash up I can throw your way if it helps), there’s still enough WTF plot turns to keep you bolted to the screen.
Social commentary, rug pulls and copious bloodshed is the name of the game here and while the constant name dropping of Barbarian in the ad campaign may leave some dudes wondering why Companion isn’t particularly scary, I’m sure many women in the audience while find plenty here to chill their blood in plenty of uncomfortably familiar ways.
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